I’m having a Douglas Coupland Moment. Bear with me.
This is a new Verizon commercial. It’s been airing on Hulu (and presumably on television sets).
This is a clever commercial. There have been countless thousands of ads that have pilloried old movies and music and cultural memes, but the only other example of a commercial aping a commercial that I can recall is the Energizer Bunny — and that was more of a game of one upsmanship. This feels like a tribute. And “big red” is a pretty good nickname for a corporation that is in desperate need of a personality.
And it’s funny, too. You’ll watch YouTube on a horse… Needless to say the jingle has been stuck in my head for days.
But something strange happened. I started to get a little angry whenever I heard caught myself humming it. Not just because it was the first commercial I had paid any attention to in what feels like years. I felt that self-righteous indignation that you’ll overhear someone spout every time a new movie is announced: “How dare they rape my childhood?” Which is such a bullshit response — the producers of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs did not board a time machine to lure your seven-year-old ass into an ice cream truck (I would totally pay to see that movie) — but there it is.
Really, I had no idea that I harbored any sentimental feelings toward this ad. But it’s so cute! So innocently romantic! How dare those clods at Verizon appropriate this piece of vintage eighties Americana to sell their crappy third-rate phones?
I’m sure that in 2040 some jerk will be complaining about Bioglorp appropriating that classic 2010 Verizon ad to sell their genepak olfactory upgrades.
Incidentally I’m pretty sure that I’ve never bought a pack of Big Red gum in my life.
