Arrrgh!!

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you, as Mr Nietzsche sagely observed:

This ad, which came up during a House episode I was watching on hulu, leaves me with three alternative explanations for its existence, each with different levels of discomfort.

The first possibility is that nobody on the planet is actually stupid enough to be motivated to buy jewellery based on such a pathetic display of undignified, limp-wristed cliches, but advertisers are dimwitted idiots who have run out of ideas. On the minus side, those idiots are targeting their ads at me, meaning they think I'm in the category of people likely to be inspired by the hollow cipher of shrivelled manhood on display in the commercial.

The second is that the advertisers are right, and there are in fact clueless betaboy losers who are positively motivated by this kind of stupidity. I am not an optimist about human nature, but it would be embarassing to find that not only is Madison Avenue is more cynical about people than me (which on its own wouldn't bother me at all), but that they're right in understanding human motivations, and I'm not (which would bother me more). On the minus side, men are lamer than I thought. On the plus side, if you are lame enough to buy jewellery after seeing this, there is some cosmic justice in the fact that cynical marketers are laughing at you while taking your money.

The final, least likely chance is that this is a failed attempt at irony, but somehow I doubt it. If it is, it backfired spectacularly on this particular viewer. I'm likely to associate Kay's Jewellery with this choad and his vulgar cut-and-paste sentimentality. Good work, geniuses.

Still there is some value to this kind of commercial. If for some reason I'm tempted to make a spontaneous purchase of nasty budgo jewellery, perhaps I'll remember this ad and reflect that I might look like this guy. At which point, I'll grab a clue and remember to be a skittles man instead.