Ad Nauseous

Have you seen these, or is it just my Puerto Rican neighborhood that attracts such ads?   The first is the original ad in Spanish, and the second is the new English version, which I was excited to see, being a fan of the original (I spend a lot of time watching Univision at my local bodegas and laundromats).

Spanish version

English version

Am I wrong or are these commercials the shit?  It’s weird, because I grew up in Tucson, where Mexicans make up a large percentage of the population, but now that I live in a neighborhood with mostly families from DR and PR, I have become very familiar with the sound of Reggaeton.   It’s died down a little in the past year or so, but it used to be the soundtrack to the neighborhood, along with that diabolical Mister Softee jingle.  I didn’t really think of it as a Caribbean thing until I went back home for Christmas and casually mentioned my newfound appreciation of this crazy new style of music, which I assumed had taken the country by storm.  But as I looked into blank stare after blank stare, I realized that Reggaeton was apparently not a Mexican thing, at least not a Sonoran thing.  So that makes me wonder if they could be playing these commercials across the country — would anyone know what the hell was going on?

These are the thoughts that keep me from getting any work done.  Maybe it’s time to stop working in front of the TV.

Have you seen these new ads for not doing steroids?

Watch the stupid-ass video now (different formats available)

They’re totally lame. There have been some fairly innovative anti-drug ads lately, like “Stoners in the Mist,” this amazing series of online potheads-as-safari-animals shorts on the website AbovetheInfluence.org.

But this steroid shit is a straight-up throwback to the after-school specials I grew up with, and demonstrates that annoying tendency ads aimed at ’straightening up’ tweens have where they use a totally hip and with it tone to try to fool the kids into thinking something entertaining is about to happen, then they preach at you a little without giving you any solid reasons you shouldn’t do the specific drug (unless it’s a gross-out tactic like showing you a rotting corpse’s lung). No, they don’t give you facts, they just keep saying that your life is like a thousand times more meaningful if you play soccer and act really smug about being straight edge, as opposed to smoking the occasional joint and/or having a beer or two on a night out. Have you ever actually met a straight-edge person? I don’t mean like your aunt who doesn’t drink because she’s past the age of doing anything fun, I mean someone young and at the height of their life who won’t so much as take a hit off a cigarette on a Saturday night. Did you ever notice that there’s something all of these holier-than-thou straight-edgers have in common? That’s right, they’re big, fat, LOSERS.

So naturally, I now assume that steroids are actually not that bad for you and the government just wants to keep them away from us because they’re like magical candy that gives you superpowers. Now if only I worked out or had any reason to care about muscle mass. Oh well, I’ll just stick to my current exercise regimen: the 6 blocks to the subway twice a week on my way to the bar plan. I think it’s working!