30 Things I've Learned From Commercials

The average person watches 34 hours of television each week, and a good chunk of those hours are filled with commercials.

Commercials, as we know, encourage us to eat and drink things, and to buy things at stores. But what deeper lessons are we actually retaining?

Here are 30 things I've learned from commercials:

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1. Beer makes any event fun.

2. The only people who eat at fast food restaurants are skinny.

3. Any time I drive a car, my experience will be narrated by an older character actor.

4. Low APR financing is extremely important when it comes to cars.

5. All highways are empty, so it's easy to drive on them.

6. All minivans have so much space, I can fit seven people, three coolers, a bicycle, a kayak, a bag of soccer equipment, a carseat, lawn chairs and a boogie board inside, with room to spare.

7. Men don't like listening to women.

8. Rather than listen to women, men would prefer to watch football, hang out with their friends, eat chips/crackers/burgers/tacos, or look at their phones.

9. But men will buy women diamonds when they are in love.

10. Women deeply enjoy cleaning.

11. Women would literally murder for a good sale.

12. Women are bothered that men don't listen to them, but only vaguely, and it mostly just makes them laugh.

13. If men simply wear deodorant, beautiful women will embrace them.

14. Brooms and mops clean everything with one light swoop.

15. If you take a picture of yourself one day, you'll look sad and slouchy. But if you take another picture of yourself 90 days later, you will smile and stand up straight.

16. The elderly are either hilarious or extremely sad.

17. Offices are either hilarious or extremely sad.

18. It's important to close my eyes while biting into hamburgers or drinking sodas.

19. Immediately after middle aged people take medicine, they like to go outside and barbecue or hang out on the beach with their spouses or families.

20. Ashton Kutcher likes taking pictures of women.

21. Other celebrities enjoy their credit cards

22. if I injure myself in some capacity, a man standing in front of a bookcase will help me receive money.

23. A movie coming out this weekend will contain explosions.

24. I will never work out as much as professional athletes, or former professional athletes.

25. Candy will explode with actual pieces of fruit when I bite into it.

26. So will juice.

27. Some people literally spend years looking for the right mattress.

28. Men who need to shave have absolutely no facial hair to begin with.

29. Stunningly attractive people are waiting patiently to talk to me on the telephone.

30. Dogs and babies.

 

Follow Lucas Kavner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lucaskavner

Comments

[MissFrijole]

09:48 AM on 12/19/2011

Just recently, I made comment on my FB page about how women are ALWAYS the ones cleaning! They are also always the ones in the kitchen cooking. It is also important to note that every family has one boy and one girl.
I hate those cheaply made commercials, like those "As Seen on TV" things, advertising some ridiculous piece of garbage. Where using a regular knife to cut a tomato won't do and buying this nifty new gadget will suddenly brighten up your kitchen. The actors are always exaggerating their bumbling and fumbling...
I don't like commercials that try to use "real" people in interview settings. I can't stand music and songs in commercials. I particularly hate ALL holiday/Christmas themed-commercials.
Yes...commercials...one of the many reasons I cancelled my cable subscription and opted for Internet-only TV. Yes...I still see them, but not as often and I usually can tune them out by changing to a different tab on my screen.

[tigerianwinter]

09:40 AM on 12/19/2011

I should ask my doctor about using a medication that I know nothing about and has lots of outlandish side effects in hopes that it might help me socialize more effectively, look better while running, smile more, or relax more while lying on a beach chair.

[incognito-ergo-sum]

08:22 AM on 12/19/2011

E.D. meds only work for couples that have outdoor bathtubs, and they don't have any plumbing hooked up.

[Lee Erickson]

08:57 AM on 12/19/2011

There's a euphemism in there somewhere...

[William Blomberg]

09:13 AM on 12/18/2011

And, only attractive 25 year olds drink beer. If you are older, you drink wine.

[kiyote23]

12:21 PM on 12/17/2011

34 hours of television a WEEK!? On AVERAGE!!?

No wonder there are Republicans.

[jedubs]

10:58 PM on 12/16/2011

You forgot that old people only have sex while lying in two separate tubs.

[only once]

06:33 AM on 12/19/2011

What kind of TV are you watching?!

[USminority]

08:44 PM on 12/16/2011

What's really sad is I watch no more than 3 hours of television a week, and I still get this article because of the growing number of advertisements on the internet.

[gneep]

01:31 PM on 12/16/2011

What we have really learned: CRASS COMMERCIALISM rules the roost.

[incognito-ergo-sum]

08:29 AM on 12/19/2011

Do you see that you made a pun there?

Commercialism provides jobs for people, we are not hunter gatherers anymore.

[gneep]

12:45 PM on 12/19/2011

buying thing just because......real waste of resourses

[Pantsy]

12:34 PM on 12/16/2011

i've also learned that you have to yell at people to buy cheap cars, but speak softly and play nice music for those who buy expensive ones.

and there are quite a few people who give cars as christmas gifts. (i've never met them, but i think they need to know me)

[Madbunny]

12:20 AM on 12/17/2011

and somehow they come with a huge frickin' bow on top.

[Lucas Kavner]

06:28 AM on 12/17/2011

I love that. That should definitely have been up there. "Put a giant red bow on top of a vehicle and it equals the perfect Christmas gift."

[Pantsy]

10:55 AM on 12/19/2011

yeah where are they buying those giant bows?

[MissFrijole]

09:57 AM on 12/19/2011

You are so right! There is this one commercial I used to see when I lived in Virginia where they used a bull dog as their mascot and the owner of the dealership would do these self-deprecating things in the commercial to get attention, like dressing up in weird costumes. They would try to act like the dog could talk and othe people from the dealership would be used as actors, except they were terrible at it. The sound quality of the commercial was also really bad. I don't know who those fly-by-night dealerships get business...

[Madbunny]

01:13 PM on 12/19/2011

If you lived in LA and used to watch television late at night you'd be familiar with Cal-Worthington and his dog spot. (which was whatever farm animal they had at the time, donkeys, elephants, occasionally dogs..)

Or for that matter the Spanish language channels just go obvious and use all girls in bikini's wriggling around on the car. Ok, I'll admit I didn't mind those that much... but they were obvious and amusing.

[maruski]

10:53 PM on 12/15/2011

This hides a darker side to commercials and that is that repetition is a main rule of hypnosis. Hearing something over and over makes it seem right to people.

Ad people, Public relations, political people, everyone who wants to own a piece of your mental landscape knows this.

and they use it.

[GHarry]

06:08 PM on 12/15/2011

We joke about this, but it's actually a very serious topic. Americans get much of their education -- such as it is -- from television, especially commercials, which teach children what to value and how to relate to other people. In recent years some of those messages have been getting pretty strange, and what's especially disturbing is that so many TV commercials carry similar messages and themes. Nowadays, for instance, many men in TV commercials are either effiminate or childish, or both. Women are usually depicted as smart and decisive, and often scold the child-men who are depicted as helpless and sappy. It makes you wonder who writes these commercials, and why so many of them have similar messages and themes. That would be a good topic for a congressional investigation: The special interest groups that influence the advertising industry and, through it, television and other media. But don't hold your breath. Some sacred cows are simply too powerful to be identified, much less investigated.

[Trydecency]

09:27 PM on 12/15/2011

There's another disturbing trend: Church groups running their own commercials, complete with annoying references to their superstitious beliefs. The Salvation Army got the camel's nose into the tent with its laid-back ad that contains several Bible quotations. Now the Christian Mingle site has its off-putting ad that implies that God wants them to sign up for access to that dating site. Is that what we can expect in the future: Endless jangling ads spewing all sorts of appeals to people to buy products and services because "this is what God wants you to do?" Isn't anyone in charge of advertising policies anymore? Are there no adults left in that business, or can any group buy airtime to use religious references to peddle any product or service? Is there no end to this money-grubbing?

[only once]

06:37 AM on 12/19/2011

The only commercials in which men are childish or helpless are ones where they're attempting to do a "woman's job" so stop the pity party. It's usually a man trying to clean, go on a diet, take care of the kids, do the laundry, etc. where they screw up and then the woman laughs and does it for him. It's basically "Oh, silly man! Don't try to do the laundry, only women know how to do it correctly!" I would pay to see a commercial where the woman swoops in a fixes the sink, but, nope. We mop the floor and know how to clean up with paper towels when dad lets the kids spill paint on the counter. The rest of commercials, as this list shows, are men being "manly men" - watching football, drinking beer, and ignoring/getting annoyed at having to listen to women.

[Lee Erickson]

09:01 AM on 12/19/2011

Yeah, the gender depiction is usually based on the target audience of the commercials. It's nothing new...the same stereotypes that have been around forever. Men are bumbling idiot neanderthals, women are over emotional and shrewish.

[SCboy]

05:48 PM on 12/15/2011

#31 -- If you have an erection lasting more than four hours you should call the doctor. Who knew? I always called my wife and she came right home.

[Neontom69]

05:57 PM on 12/17/2011

#31a - It is completely normal to have an erection for 3hr 59m, but no longer. What you do with it is optional.

[MissFrijole]

09:53 AM on 12/19/2011

I am a girl, but if I had a stiffy that lasted longer than two hours and there wasn't any stimulation or any kind of attempt at a release, I would definitely be on the phone with my doctor by then. Who had four hours to wait for something like that to go away?

[josephXY]

05:18 PM on 12/15/2011

And here is a video that makes hilarious fun of the old media and ad industry.
An industry that is already over the top, on the gradual way down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CqRcCHk_Pc

[Evan Shapiro]

05:03 PM on 12/15/2011

Kinda brilliant. Don't forget about: Women Laugh When They Eat Salad.

[Dogzilla]

05:00 PM on 12/15/2011

Trojan is selling a new vibrator that will "blow your hair back."

I can't figure out how that's supposed to work. Is it a blow dryer or a vibrator?

I almost ordered one just to find out and then I realized... that's how they get you!

[only once]

06:41 AM on 12/19/2011

Pretty sure it's just the whole "getting blown away" getting depicted as having your whole head of hair blown straight back. Definitely not a hair dryer, lol.

[MissFrijole]

09:52 AM on 12/19/2011

I have never had my hair stand on end from using a vibrator, regardless of brand...It's a dumb commercial, just like every other one on TV. It makes me sad, though, that people fall for these stupid ads. I don't buy anything based on commercials because I know they are bold-faced lies. The food in commercials is usually fake food and we all know that burgers from fast food joints don't look anything like the real deal!