Tuesday, September 9, 2008

friend request rejected

Nowadays, I can almost always be found in one of three places: a cubicle, a subway car, or a bed.

But while the cubicle and the bed remain the same (more or less) on a day-to-day basis, the subway frequently offers something new to gawk at or dwell upon. Perhaps that's why I've been writing about it so much lately. Maybe I should start a subway blog called "The J in JMZ." Yes? No.

One of the things I hate/love about the subway is how each car is typically plastered with hundreds of advertisements from a single company. Lately, every car I ride in is wallpapered with these irritating ads for Dentyne Ice.

There are so many reasons I hate this ad campaign. So many reasons. They took a sort of maybe kinda clever idea (taking "cyber-phrases" and relating them to real life situations) and totally fumbled it. This kind of thing infuriates me. Maybe I have been watching too much "Mad Men" (I am pretty sure that's an oxymoron, btw), but I can totally imagine ten 50-year-old ad execs sitting around smoking cigars and saying things like "I know how to get little 13-year-olds to chomp on some Dentyne - let's just reference that new-fangled MyFace site thing my daughter's always talking about!"

Of the many people whose friend requests I have accepted over the years, there are probably only 2 or maybe 3 that I would hug like this. In fact, there are only about ten percent who I even acknowledge in public! (Not to mention: are we really meant to believe these two aren't already Facebook friends if they are hugging like this? This is clearly the hug of people who became Facebook friends the day after they found out they had gotten into the same college and joined the same toolish Facebook group.)

And what does this concept (people don't have real interactions anymore, everything is conducted on the internet, blah blah blah) have to do with GUM?! People chew gum all the time, regardless of who they're with. When they're with their friends, when they're at their computers, when they're on airplanes, whenever. This ad makes me hate gum: it makes me think about when you swallow gum, and when you find gum under your seat, and it makes me think about Violet Beauregarde!

FRIEND REQUEST REJECTED. That's right, Dentyne, you're going to stare at me in your "People You May Know" box and WISH we were friends. You're going to dream about seeing all my tagged pictures. Think how awesome it would be if you could post on my wall. And wish you could know what it feels like to hug me like that.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

what about when you bum a stick of gum from a stranger and/or remote acquaintance? have you never told somebody you loved them when they popped out a much-needed chiclet into your palm?

Chetan said...

I hate those dentyne ads, they're all over the T as well... my personal (non)favorite is the one about joining a chat room--accompanied by an image of what looks like the aftermath of an orgy, with two girls and two guys snuggling.

Anonymous said...

There is a whole lot of plaid in these ads... I'm not entirely sure what this means or how I feel about it, but I'm pretty sure it's significant in some sense.

Anonymous said...

My brother's initials are JMZ. Well, actually JSMZ, which sounds almost dirty if you pronounce it phonetically, but that's beside the point.

kariwastaken said...

1. Mad Men is an amazing show. Thanks, AMC, for running a marathon so I could properly catch up and subsequently become entirely hooked.

2. Don Draper would not dig these dumb Dentyne ads. (almost all alliteration. hah)

3. Do you accept facebook friend requests from loyal blog readers?

Anonymous said...

I don't know if you've seen this before, but this is the reason why I choose Stride Gum while standing in line at the grocery store:

http://wherethehellismatt.com/?fbid=Fh5g0