Stupid Commercials

Okay, so General Electric has a huge new advertising campaign in which all of the families and friends of new GE hires are incredibly stupid.

I'm not the only one who's noticed this. Although I'm starting to wonder whether I'm the only one who thinks that all that these commercials "mean" is that GE bought a lot of really stupid commercials.

I read a commentary by someone who was offended by these commercials because they thought they were "incredibly condescending."

I think the commentator may be thinking about this way too hard. There's no reason to feel condescended to by these icky commercials unless you identify with everyone that new GE hires know outside of work in the commercials' parallel universe. And there's no reason to identify with them.

Why is the douchebag with the douchebag wife talking to that douchebag Jake from State Farm at 3 in the morning? Because it's a stupid commercial that makes you think "Yuck!" any time anyone mentions State Farm. That's the only reason.

Why would the exec who green-lighted the "I See Stupid People" ad campaign at GE want to give the impression that everyone whom the company hires is surrounded by stupid people all the time when they're not working? Because that exec is incredibly stupid. Or, at best, they were marginally competent in some department other than ad buys, much better than they were going to be at ad buys. And then they got transferred to ad buys.

The Allstate mayhem commercials? Why would an insurance company want to come across like a bunch of mafia thugs, "Hey ya got a lovely home here, hyuck hyuck, it'd be a shame if it got all smashed up, hyuck hyuck hyuck!" ? More stupidity.

There's no hidden meaning here. Just huge corporations with lots of money, and some of the money sloshes into stupid advertising decisions.