the advertising industry … the biggest cunts of them all?

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Here I am, sitting at the local bar … and over there on the wall is a large embossed metal advertising sign for Mickey's beer. Or, rather, "Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor". And when I looked at it, I knew. I was no longer at a loss for a rant for today. In fact, I was so inspired I had to get my computer out of my truck and get to writing before the moment passed. Because the advertising industry are absolute, unrepentant, morally bankrupt, utter fucking cunts … there is NO SUCH FUCKING THING as "fine" malt liquor.

[For those of you unfamiliar with the finer points of the North American brewing industry, allow me to offer an analogy: There is fine wine. There is OK wine. There is cheap overly-strong wine in screw-top gallon jugs. Malt liquor is the gallon jug wine of the beer universe. If the phrase "Malt Liquor" is prefaced with the word "Fine," it only means it is flavorless enough that it might not make you gag.]

Hanging next to me on the wall right now is a mirrored promotional sign for Miller High Life. Perhaps a step above malt liquor? But I'd argue no … it is equally as vile tasting, but it won't get you drunk nearly as quickly. If you're drinking something nasty, you're almost certainly drinking to get drunk, so let's just admit that efficiency is an asset in the beverage in question, shall we? Now, this sign asserts that Miller High Life is "The Champagne of Beers." If, by "champagne" you mean "pale fizzy liquid," then I'll go with that. But, for fuck's sake, every time an American advertising hack uses anything French as a descriptive, they are trying to make the product sound fine and cultured.

Really, never mind the whole "Freedom Fries" debacle, or the half-assed boycott of French cheese and wine in the early days of America's current worldwide military humiliation campaign … the advertising industry knows the truth: "French" means "quality and class" to Americans, and that is why we hate them. If we can make shit beer and tell ourselves it's as good as champagne, then we've got one over on them, haven't we? We don't need their stinking champagne! We have Miller High Life and sparkling wine in screw-top bottles!

But really, cheap beer advertising is one of the least offensive of the advertising industry's accomplishments. They are marketing cheap beer to rubes, and the only people who really fall for it are people who are so borderline illiterate that product packaging text takes on an almost talismanic power of suggestion. (Which almost makes it worse doesn't it? It's like offering a slow classmate a silver dollar in exchange for five quarters, because you know they "collect" silver dollars. I never ever did such a thing to a girl I knew in High School.) Advertising automobiles is entirely worse, as the hacks on the job are actively convincing people that 20mpg is good fuel efficiency, and that buying SUVs—to hell with the environment—is a Very Good Idea. Likewise with convincing children that McDonalds is a brilliant place to go for dinner.

In endeavors like this, the ad industry is not only lying in order to convince rubes to waste their money on needless, unhealthy beverages. No. They are actively promoting the purchase of products which variously destroy the environment for the entire human population, have mostly destroyed the independent farm industry of the US, and are against the long term health interests of American children. Or rather, children all over the world, as McDonalds is a global menace nowadays (and a valuable foreign policy asset from what I understand: I hear tell that the US gov't has never attacked a country with McDonalds in it. If only Saddam had known!) Yes, the advertising industry is shamelessly promoting the wholesale destruction of our planet and the personal health of its inhabitants, proudly and capably, for nothing more than the love of money.

These fucking evil cunts are equaled in malevolence by very, very few groups of people on earth. Corporate officers, perhaps? Those special, bloodless evil fuckers who can cheerfully relocate their company's manufacturing enterprises to a third world country, knowing they're costing hundreds of higher-paid employees their jobs—in some cases essentially killing entire small towns who depend on their factory's economic support—in favor of employing foreign workers at slave wages … why? To increase their profit margin. To bolster their stock price. To line their own already-fucking-overstuffed pockets.

I would say politicians are their equal as well, but I do believe that a measurable portion of politicians actually do try to effect some kind of positive change in the world … there's Dennis Kucinich, and Peter Defazio, and there must be a couple of others somewhere. So who else is boarding my short-list first-class coach to the deepest circle of agnostic hell? *think*think*think* Child molesters and rapists? OK, they'll do as well. I won't say murderers though, because some of them are fairly well justified.

However, I must also admit to a significant admiration for these soulless, festeringly evil bastards. Some of them manage to do their jobs without actively promoting the efficient destruction of everything worthwhile in the world. Some of them are rather mind-bogglingly clever. Some of them manage to create things strongly resembling art. Apple Computer's drive into the consumer electronics industry has been nothing short of brilliant, from a marketing perspective. The introduction of the first-generation iMac computer ran an eventually painfully tiresome shockwave through the industrial design industry, and suddenly everything was translucent and a hideous shade of almost-electric teal. We need not mention the iPod in any detail. The organic food industry is finally catching on the the niceties of mass-market salesmanship, to the point where even Wal*Mart (speaking of evil personified) is carrying a significant amount of organic foodstuffs.

However, for every Apple, there is a Kraft working hard to convince you that not only is mayonnaise much too difficult in those glass jars, even first-generation plastic squeeze bottles (which generic brands are coincidentally moving towards) are unacceptably inefficient … what you need is a non-stick squeeze bottle. Yes. Less mayonnaise wasted can only be a good thing (and please don't wonder too deeply about what sort of chemical process might be needed to make plastic "non-stick")! For every organic food company, there is a company deciding that what your children really need are frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the crusts pinched off when the slices of pasty white bread are compressed into a soggy pocket (they're call "Uncrustables" … for FUCK'S sake!).

Or perhaps it's you, the poor, overworked parent who simply doesn't have time to smear some peanut butter and jelly on some bread? Never fear! Even if the idea of Uncrustables turns your stomach, you can always simply buy your peanut butter and jelly swirled together in a single plastic squeeze bottle, guaranteed to bring an inexplicable sense of gleaming-white-toothed-grinning-joy to your daily parental grind, according to the commercials … I do not know if this miraculous concoction is available in non-stick squeeze bottles yet though. The Kraft mayonnaise people might be keeping that priceless innovation to themselves.

I have a tiny bit of insight into the whole advertising game, thanks to a rather innovative teacher I had in the 11th grade … he brought in a large stack of Consumer Reports magazines, and a stack of index cards with different solidly-mediocre products listed on them. We each chose a random product, and then had to devise a commercial for it that would somehow make it sound fabulous. Clever, subversive man. Teaching us to read between the lines when we watched advertisements … we know what advertisers are telling us, but what are they not telling us at the same time? Myself and my project partner were not telling you that our toilet bowl cleaner wouldn't do anything to clean the stains from your toilet bowl. It actually wouldn't do much of anything but make your bathroom smell a bit nicer. It was utter rubbish for anything else. And we got an A on the project, for conveniently not mentioning anything but how nice and fresh the party hostess's bathroom smelled.

Now, if only those clever advertising boys can figure out a way to make the rest of the world smell nice while they sell it straight into the sewers … perhaps we just won't notice.

But really, Bill Hicks said it best … damn him for dying young …

By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Just a little thought. I'm just tryin' to plant seeds. Maybe, maybe one day they'll take root, I don't know … you try. You do what you can. Kill yourselves. Seriously though, if you are, do. Uhhhh … No really. There is no rationalization for what you do, and you are Satan's little helpers. OK? Kill yourself, seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good. Seriously. No, this is not a joke … you're all, "There's gonna be a joke coming," there's no fuckin' joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us, kill yourself, it's the only way to save your fuckin' soul. Kill yourself. Plantin' seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "He's doing a joke," there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tailpipe, fuckin' hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend, I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fuckin' machinations.

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