You think that (AT&T) is funny? Do you have children?
I would love to get some links to news reports about kids being stuck in featureless rooms with men who offer them ponies or ice cream and then take it away arbitrarily.
Yup. I don’t know if this a trend of the last five years or so or whether I’ve just been noticing it more - many ads are sociopathic. I don’t think this is ad is really saying what parents secretly think, which is where the humour is supposed to come from.
Do you know children who find this commercial frightening?
The commercial that is the subject of this thread is linked to in the OP. We’ve wandered a little.
Disturbing.
It’s certainly possible, but I find it difficult to take seriously. I think most kids would recognize it for what it is, a (slightly funny) joke in a commercial.
I don’t know. It would be informative to be the “fly on the wall” in a room where children of the age group depicted in the op commercial (9 or 10 or so} see it. That’s a very tender time in a kid’s life.
Sibling rivalry doesn’t need encouragement.
You know there’s this this thing called parenting. Part of this process involves the mother or father (or both) actually talking to their children. Explaining to them various things about the real world. One of these things could even be… oh, I don’t know… subject matter on TV.
Sounds crazy, I know, but psychologists these days are saying it actually works.
Yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it.
I thought it was funny. I watched it twice, and thought it funny both times. I also have children, although the youngest is twelve, so they’re all old enough to understand humor.
My favorite is the one where the guy is interviewing.
I suspect that many parents of more than one kid—in their heart of hearts, no matter how deeply repressed, when it’s “genitals hooked up to the car battery” truth-telling time—actually do have a favorite.
Why someone felt this dark, deeply buried truth would make good fodder for lighthearted advertising is harder to understand.
I love how everyone is in arms because children COULD be upset/hurt/offended/SCARED FOR LIFE by this commerical, but no children have claimed so…
I’m sure most children are aware there’s a favorite. Even if there isn’t, one sibling usually gets the better treatment.
Moving thread from IMHO to MPSIMS.
Exactly!
I don’t need to personally see children falling like leaves into devastating depression to realize that the commercial isn’t a good thing.
And I’m referring just to the commercial linked in the op.
How could know that? Besides, many kids learn to suffer in silence.
The comercials are funny and the message is transparent to most who watch.
The commercials starring “Mayhem” are also extremely funny but could be in poor taste to victims of real “mayhem”. So what, i laugh anyway.
Tell me about it. The guys making fun of Sasquatch need to wise up too. Not funny.
Really? You think this ad is sociopathic? I think its funny. Perhaps I have sociopathic tendencies? Nah, that can’t be right - my mom always liked me best! 
I think it shows a lack of empathy for those who would be disturbed by it. And I don’t have to do a survey to know that many children, and some parents, will see themselves in that commercial and be disturbed by it.