There is a shop in this town that sells infotainment goods. You can go there in person and buy them over the counter. Last Christmas a relative from a country area came to stay and I took her shopping. She had only ever seen stuff like that on television and when she got inside the shop she seemed to become delirious. It was like she’d reached Mecca. Like, “oh my God it’s the infuser system, oh oh space bags, stacker trays, Mega Memory, oh God, the Air Core system. These products really exist.” I think she must have had her credit cards taken away in the 70s.
Once I bought my mother something called a Serafina slider curl over the phone. It was totally useless and because of that I realised there was probably a marketing principle at work. Infotainment goods are promoted on television (for millions of hours) until a downturn in sales is caused by people finding out, through word of mouth or direct experience, that they’re not that great. This won’t always be the case but a lot of the time I’m sure it is.
His name was Mike Levy, but I can’t find a picture of him. A good site to look up all things infomercial is (surprisingly) http://www.infomercialindex.com Find more junk than you’ll ever need. Click on Personalities for a list of all TV hucksters to date.
Remember how Rocky Horror Show fans saw the film so many times that they knew all the words? It became a kind of interactive thing. Infotainments are a bit like that, I’m sure. I could stare at Kevin Trudeau all day…at his lovely weird eyes, his clear, baby face and his preternaturally white shirt. I love his Atkins diet commercial where he talks about how he discovered fat people got that way because they eat when they’re not hungry. So he invented a system so people could eat when they’re not hungry but not gain weight. “You can just eat all you want and you will just not feel hungry,” he says. The interviewer guy says, “but presumably if you’re not feeling hungry you won’t want to eat, Kevin”. “Yes! That’s right,” he says. See what I mean? I’ve never bought a single thing off Kevin Trudeau and I probably never will.
Anyone here remember K-tel? In the 70s they seemed to be just about everywhere. “New, from K-tel – it julliennes, it chops, it dishes, it washes your car, it minds your children, it insults your boss! And how much would you say THIS was worth?”
Any still have K-tel LPs? Anyone still burning theirs?
If I’m up late, an’ there’s nothin’ new on the SDMB, an’ there’s only infomercialials on the TV – I read a book. It’s cheaper.
The only thing I ever bought from an infomercial was a Christmas CD last year. It was a gift for my daughter. I do tend to get some of the stuff when it starts being sold in Walmart or Ames. Just to see what its like.
My wife bought Wall Magic (a Y-shaped roller that make sa rather pleasant paint pattern on the wall), Quick and Brite, and the set-it-and-forget-it rotisserie. Amazingly, all three are actually quite good products! I am still rather stunned by this.
I hate to admit this, be me and my brother know the words to probably every infomercial Ron Popiel (ronco) has ever done. That and the foodsaver infomercial. Just a lot of funny little things that we’ve noticed from seeing them so much that became like inside jokes. However, i have yet to purchase something from an infomercial…
mobo85: It’s scary Benny Hinn of Benny Hinn Ministeries. As in Kenneth Copland, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar. The kind who should be out clearing landmines, policing Sierra Leone and rescuing children from Russian institutions instead of taking up television time. I’d rather see a Cimarron Strip rerun.
That Benny Hinn mother fucker has to be seen to be believed. He is a “faith healer” who claims that he can heal people of any sickness by slapping them on the head and praising Jesus. How much do you want to bet that when Benny gets sick he’s on the next fucking taxi to Cedars-Sanai Medical Center.
I bought one of those things that supposedly scares spiders and rodents out of your house by creating electro-magentic pulses that drive them crazy. I sent it back the day I found a spider had built it’s web on the damn thing.
My father’s theory is that those things don’t work, but the company has a couple of hundred that they just keep sending out, and they make their money by overcharging on the postage (which they don’t refund). If people keep the thing instead of sending it back, so much the better!
Do you know what’s in the white bags that Benny and his guests sit around? Are they letters, all the same size and colour? I always wake up after they’re sitting around the strange bags. I assume they are letters from people who want to be healed by Benny’s method but through the television instead of at his shows. You would think he could use that thing he does on the Taliban and take over Afghanistan. Afghanistan was once an American ally, remember? I think a lot of Afghanis feel a little let down by America. Benny could fix that and clean up landmines in the process. He needs to do something practical.
Yep, I think that’s exactly what they are supposed to be: letters from the faithful, prayer requests and the like. I don’t care what David Icke says, it isn’t the British royal family and the Bush clan that are reptilian overlords, it’s people like The Benster.
Infotainment products aren’t all bad, I must admit. In fact, one such product is turning me into genetic determinism’s greatest foe. It’s the dietary meal replacement thing that tastes like a rich, creamy, sweet dessert when you whip it up. I am proving beyond doubt that fat can be permanently conquered with exercise and mousse. My success is due to more than the diet food though, I must admit. It’s also based on the personal insights I have into “fat psychology”. One day soon I might develop a system to rival Kevin’s but everyone here will be able to get it free.
Dijon Warlock: I’ve never seen Benny Hinn opening up one of those parcels. There’s no clue that they’re not just some kind of avante garde coffee table.
What about Sy Rogers? He would have made Andy Warhol faint. John Waters would love him to death. May be he is John Waters. He’s with the Riverview (or is it Riverside?) Church out of Perth Australia. He’s American and I think his website describes him as a recovering transvestite or something similar. He’s great, but I’ve only seen him once or twice.
I haven’t ever seen him open them, either; but he has referred to them before as “literally thousands of prayer requests from God’s children,” or some such. Supposed to impress the masses, I guess. What blows me away is how many people are at those revivals he shows. Guns-n-Roses never sold out auditoriums like this guy. Scary.
Never heard of Sy Rogers, but your description makes him sound interesting, to say the least. Fainting Warhol and the love of Waters? Can’t be bad…
Christianity: possibly a good idea if someone tried it. I saw that somewhere once. Every time I see those huge evangelical audiences I think of it and everytime I see 20/20 and Sixties minutes stories on Mexican and East European mental institutions I think of it too. And what about Romanian child-rotting orphanages and Siberian prisons? Those places seem to exist to provide journalists like Diane Sawyer with somewhere to go once every two or three years. There’s too much acceptance of all that Marshall McLuhan stuff about how the tie between information and action has been severed. About how we used to know only what we had to to survive and now we know heaps of stuff we can’t do anything about. Well, the day that someone gives me as much money as Benny Hinn is the day I shoot my way into twenty human rights violating institutions of my choice.