Carefully Made To Annoy Me: Why I Hate Commercials

Does anyone else have an irrational hatred of commercials? Or is it just me?

The other night I was once again doing battle with my arch-nemesis, insomnia. Often when I am in the throes of this battle, I find myself wondering what would help me fall asleep faster.

Option A is to go downstairs and watch some TV.

Option B is to continue lying in bed and just hope I can get back to sleep.

I hardly ever take Option A, because I always manage to convince myself that it’s a bad idea (even though it has been effective in the past). I seem to think that the act of going downstairs will wake me up more, and then I can’t go back to sleep. Also, it tends to activate the overthinking part of my brain as I decide what to watch. On the plus side, The Cat is always happy to see me and eager to cuddle. But then whenever I do return to bed, she is angry at being left alone and decides to voice her frustrations outside my door for at least an hour. Few things are more torturous than hearing a never ending chorus of loud, angry meows when you’re trying to go to sleep.

I suppose my main reason for rejecting Option A, however, is the desire to avoid commercials. Many of the shows I watch right now are on Hulu, which means not only can I not escape the commercials, but they often show THE SAME ONES every single time there’s a commercial break.

And it drives. Me. CRAZY.

So I stayed in bed, confident at that time that I had made the right decision. And I put all my effort into Thinking Myself to Sleep. Because in my sleep deprived delirium, I have convinced myself that if I think hard enough about something, I’ll tire myself out and go to sleep.

It’s like I haven’t even met myself sometimes.

As always, I start to think of something…and my mind wanders somewhere else…and the next thing I know…

…I’ve got a commercial running through my head.

Are you keeping track of this so far? I decided not to go downstairs and watch TV because I wanted to avoid the commercials…

…but now I have a commercial in my head. And what’s more, it won’t get OUT of my head. It just keeps playing on repeat. At least if I had fired up Hulu, the commercials would eventually end. Not so when I get stuck on a brain loop, my hatred for this commercial forcing it to repeat again and again…causing me to get EVEN ANGRIER about this commercial,  thus making me EVEN MORE awake than before, because all my energy is now going into this thing that I hate.

So what is this commercial, you ask? It’s one that I often see on Hulu for some sort of ice cream.

This is how much I hate this commercial if it can cause me to feel rage about ICE CREAM, aka the food of the gods.

So in this commercial you see this automated production line putting together an ice cream package.

Just one. One pint of ice cream.

ONE.

Right there, that sets my efficiency sensors off. There are TONS of expensive looking machines hard at work, dumping chocolate chips, stirring the cream, etc. You’re telling me that somebody put all this money into building this massive factory and rigging up these big machines to just make ONE PINT OF ICE CREAM? Plus these machines are moving pretty slow too. To be fair, that could just be the slow motion effects going. Advertisers LOVE throwing in some slow-mo, especially when it’s a video about food. But again, the taskmaster in me is wanting to scream at these things to get cracking.

Then there’s this music playing. I think the best way to describe it is “loud guitars covering up sex noises.” I think they were going for…not that. But all I can hear is:

1. Repetitive guitar riffs.
2. Panting and heavy breathing sounds just under the repetitive guitar riffs.

Clearly, they’re trying to send a subliminal message that this ice cream is SEXY. Because that’s a message that the world needs, right?

“Amy, do you think maybe you’re reading into this a bit too much,” you ask.

No. No I do not. Because the next shot takes us out of the factory. The lone pint of ice cream has now appeared in some supermodel’s freezer. How do I know she’s a supermodel, you ask? She’s all dressed up, she’s got legs for days, and she’s got that glazed over half-angry half-asleep look as she’s reaching into the freezer for said ice cream.

WHO IS ANGRY ABOUT ICE CREAM?! WHO?!

And then she grimaces for a second as she twists the container. To be clear, this was not a “this ice cream is rock hard from being in a really cold freezer and therefore is hard to scoop up” kind of action. The announcer gleefully says this ice cream is “carefully made to be broken.” The ice cream REQUIRES this twisting dance.

Or maybe it doesn’t, because the next shot features the supermodel forcefully thrusting a spoon into the ice cream to break the candy shell (that supposedly she was just trying to break by doing the container twisting dance). And then we get a close up of that same violent spoon sloooooooowly going into her painted mouth, followed by her big smile and her blissfully sinking against the wall. Some text pops up on the screen announcing that this brand of ice cream is “for pleasure seekers.”

Now, I have had some AMAZING ice cream in my life, but I’ve never gotten that hot and bothered over it. If the factory makers had been more efficient and cranked out tons of ice cream rather than pouring all the energy into the one pint, I might be more excited. But they weren’t, so I don’t understand her…um…let’s call it enthusiasm.

In summary, I hate this commercial. I don’t want to work that hard for ice cream. I don’t need my ice cream to be sexy. And it annoys me. A lot.

Anybody else have a deep abiding hatred for any particular commercial? Or just the concept of commercials in general? Tell me about it in the comments. I’ll read them in a bit. There’s some rocky road in the freezer and it’s calling my name.