Unless you’ve had the displeasure (and I do NOT recommend it) of visiting rotten.com, you won’t have been exposed to what are termed “An archive of disturbing illustration” or “disturbing pictures, odd news stories, and more” or equally euphemistic descriptions of what’s there to make you sorry you had ever seen such things.
“That which is seen cannot be unseen”
Instead of promoting visits there, this thread is for the purpose of calling attention to other understatements, either real or concocted, of other goods, services, human activities or human beings.
At this point 94 views have taken place with no responses, so I have to assume the topic, as a topic, is interesting enough to see what’s going on. Then I have to assume that:
everybody ran off to see what rotten.com was all about and once there decided the topic had no further value
the OP was unclear about what was being sought
the relevance of Brylcreem as compared to rotten.com left the idea too hazy
this is just not a worthy topic for discussion for some other reason
Since I can try to expand on (2) and (3) a little, I will.
To me, the phrase “disturbing illustrations” doesn’t begin to present the horror and ugliness of the pictures there. Plenty more extreme terms could brace the potential viewer for what’s coming.
With Brylcreem, back when a large contingent of my school mates (guys mostly) used “a little dab” for the purposes of managing unruly hair back when the fashion was for ducktails and slicked back styles, “a little dab” looked like somebody had sat under their car engine while the oil was being changed. Take my word for it “a little dab” was way more than enough.
So the challenge of the thread is to identify other faux pas in advertising, promotions and other hype where the understatement is so misleading that it cries for stronger and more appropriate wording.
And, most of all, the examples need to be grossly entertaining. If I failed in that regard in the OP, I apologize.
I think it’s a little of points (2) and (3) and also that you don’t seem too clear on what constitutes understatement yourself.
Brylcreem’s “A little dab’ll do ya” slogan isn’t understatement. If anything, like most advertising slogans, it’s hyperbole – it means “Our product is so good, you only need a small amount to keep your hair shiny and in place.” The fact that some people chose to use more than a dab doesn’t affect that.
The mobile home commercial doesn’t really look like what I’d call understatement either.
Not sure I’ve fully grasped what the OP is looking for with this… but what the hey!
Stella Artois sell themselves as “reassuringly expensive”, which seems a fairly understated way of selling their product.
I think the best one is a UK brand called “Ronseal” (not sure if you have it in the USA?).
They sell timber treatments - wood stain, creosote etc - with fairly prosaic names (so rather than “New SupaStain Timber Magic Excel!!”, it’ll be “Ronseal Quick-Drying Woodstain”).
Their advertising strapline is “Ronseal Quick-Drying Woodstain - does exactly what it says on the tin”, which seems to be the definition of understatement.
That phrase is very common in normal use now - if you’re eating e.g. “honey glazed smokey BBQ chicken pieces” and a friends asks “what are they like?”, you’d say “well, it kinda does what it says on the tin”.
SureFire flashlights are also under-advertised, the stated lumen output is always deliberately understated, based on batteries at or above 50-55% capacity, and with a lamp assembly (in the case of incans) at 50% of it’s life
Example, a SureFire 6p incan is rated at 60 lumens and about an hour of runtime, actual output with fresh batteries and bulb is actually around 80 lumens or so, a SureFire A2 Aviator incan is rated at 50 lumens, actual output 75-80 a 9P with the P91 high-output bulb is rated at 200 lumens, actual output is around 250
Many other high performance lights (Streamlight, Inova, etc…) tend to inflate their lumen output, they give emitter lumens, and don’t take into account losses to the reflector/lens/window, SureFire lumens are “Out The Front” lumens, taking into account the previous variables
That word, “understatement.” I do not think it means what you think it means.
Your two linked examples seem to be more of a “honesty in advertising” variety. The one for the tattoo parlor is certainly not understating anything; they’re being up front about the prejudice that people still have about body modification and saying that one shouldn’t go for it unless it has been thought through. It’s being brutally honest.
ETA: And warning people about the content of a website is akin to telling someone climbing a rope not to look down. Many people will go to the website just to “see if it’s THAT bad.”
May I assume you visited rotten.com? If so, did you find the use of the term “disturbing” to be a little bit understated? Would you as an independent evaluator of those images not have gone with a bit stronger term like vile, disgusting, horrible or something more to the point?
I would have thought there are many examples of where the wording used to describe or promote some “as yet unseen by the person being addressed” product, service, or bit of entertainment is just a bit underplayed, intentionally or not, ironically or not, so that the end result is that once the person being addressed has had the opportunity to form his or her own opinion of that commodity, that the words he or she would choose would be substantially stronger.
It was with the hope that participants in this thread might have looked for even more drastic instances of understatement, where the result was shocking, repulsive, offensive or otherwise “disturbing” to the recipient of the description, that I chose what to me was a powerful example.
However, the examples supplied by other posters to the thread are perfectly within the bounds of what the OP was trying to solicit. Just not as grotesque and perhaps not as funny. But the OP didn’t say they had to be funny or even grotesque.
Joke-a-day.com used to have a tagline on their site that went something like “Come experience our world class customer service! Piss poor is a class, right?”
It reminds me of some old character in a sitcom (or the like) who was tasting the homemaker’s cookies or casserole or whatever, saying, “Just like my mama used to make: it stinks!”
Not sure if this is getting closer to the mark (I have another ad at the back of my mind which fits better, need to think about it), but this is an Aussie beer adin which the pure Tasmanian waters ‘make things come out different - in a good way’.
Yep - he did voice-over stuff while performing as part of FOTC before they got big in the US. NZ’s a small place - he’s a friend of a friend although I’ve never met him personally, saw them perform in a small club a few years ago.
I’m broken hearted that HBO dropped their show.The best thing HBO had since The Sopranos. Comedy Central has had some of Kristen Schaal’s (Mel’s) bits and they are beyond crazy. She helped FOTC get a hit as much as the guys did, IMHO.
