17 December 2005

Christmas Commercials

Need to die. I'm so tired of the jeweler commercials...show your wife/girlfriend/resident female that you love her by giving her a nice, shiny rock.

It will be assumed that I am bitter because I don't have anyone to give me a shiny rock. Untrue! While I do admit really liking my high school class ring (which currently resides in Russia), I'm not really one for rings anyway. But that's not important now.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older and less innocent, but every year it seems to get worse -- this materialism that pervades our culture. It's especially prevalent at Christmas. They step up the commercials for diamonds and jewelry and clothes and malls...it's all so incredibly fake. I think I'm also annoyed that it appears that in December I'm supposed to magically find things for my friends and family that they will like. That's just too much pressure. I have a tendency to see things at inappropriate times, like mid-March, that scream at me "Hey! [insert friend here] would freakin love me!" and those inanimate objects screaming at me are usually right.

I think it doesn't help much that I don't have a whole lot of money to spend (inevitably at Christmas; I think it's connected to the massive tuition payment) and so I feel guilty for not being much in the way of a gift-giver.

But really, the deluge of commercials are really killing me. I don't like most commercials anyway, especially since the radio assumes that everyone who listens to classic rock is a guy. Every third commercial on 102.3 is for a strip club or for "male enhancement". I have no need for either of these things. I could sure use mail enhancement, though. My federal loan hasn't shown up yet...

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i love shiny rocks.. hee hee

4:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sorry, besides loving shiny rocks, I love to give gifts. But I don't have a lot of money either (and I don't get into debt I don't need) so I give whatever I can whenever I can. Since I'm a reader I like to give books (trying to match it to the person is in itself fun). Gave my boss the Jon Stewart book last year. Not sure if he read it or not. Advertisements have a job: to sell. The reason they are cold and materialistic is because the advertisers study the target market of the product to be sold and guess what: the potential consumers are materialistic and shallow! Surprise, surprise.

4:42 PM  
Blogger Deanna said...

Your sentiment about Christmas echoes across the land...but, unfortunately, we still have to do it. I love busy malls (tho NOT the parking lots) and bustling happy crowds. Maybe I just see it that way, not the way it is (angry stressed out buyers, screaming kids), but I can't help but loving this time of year. Luckily, I don't watch television, so the ads don't get to me, and I gave up the biggest shiniest rock of all--so I'll take my popcorn strung Christmas and scribbled cards all day long!

5:09 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home