Car Commercials *Rant*

{Warning! Rant Alert! The following post contains cynicysm, acidic/funny exaggeration, and possibly ironic satire. You have been warned.}

I don't know about the people of ZU, but car commercials these days annoy me to no end. I know that our capitalist economy runs by way of the best looking and highest quality product winning, but the over-glorification and hype in car commercials these days have reached a new level of stupidity. Yes, there is a certain measure of this in any advertisement, but since cars are quite a substantial investment, they've been pumping more and more empty appeal into car commercials, more than any other product being advertised on TV.

Such commercials that raise my ire are ones that try to portray a car as being close to nature. You see these commercials portraying their vehicles riding in such various rugged environments as the Sahara, the North Pole, misty rainforests, or Rocky Mountains. While here in reality, cars, trucks, SUV's, and other gas guzzling monsters are anything but close to nature. If Mother Nature were to have evolved a creature the same size and shape as the modern SUV, it would quickly have become the terror of the animal kingdom and have been known for trampling smaller mammals, such as dogs, with no mercy. So when I see a commercial with an SUV driving alongside a running Cheetah in the grasslands, it actually makes me less likely to buy their car when, in the distant future, I could actually afford paying for it.

This brings me to the price issue. A lot of our modern-day car commercials first show the aforementioned glorified segments before proudly announcing "Only 18 easy payments of $188,999.95! Ok, I was exaggerating, but the way they parade these extravagant sums around TV while insisting they are "Economical", or "Small and simple to pay", simply disgusts me. They're almost implying that the car is actually "Cool" because you spent your entire college savings on it. Then there's the issue of "Cash Back" deals, which tell me that when I buy their car, they'll hand me $5,000 in raw cash. You know what I would do? I would turn right back around to them, hand the money back, and say "Here's my first payment."

And what about the fine print? Throughout the history of mankind, commercial offers have always been known to contain a reasonable amount of fine print. But as greed has multiplied in our political and economic system, the big corporations have found it necessary to add more fine print in order to throw more tacked on fees and requirements onto every business deal we make. Items like cell phones now require a "3 year contractory consignment that the consumer henceforth shall sacrifice every newborn male in their family to the almighty 'PhoneCorp.'" Cars are far from the exception, the fact that they're so big and expensive encourages companies to add more and more 'Catch 22's' to their deals. I'm starting to think we've gone beyond Catch "22", and have progressed somewhere to Catch 2,094,867,678. The average car commercial contains around 18 paragraphs of these promiscuous catches, all of which are in approximately .00000089 point font. You couldn't read this print with your average standard electron microscope. And if you weren't smart enough to look these catches up in the company's "Consignment", then you might end up cutting off your own limbs and giving them to the Big Motor Corporation.

So remember, before you go on the harrowing journey to buy a car, remember to think of all the small mammals this new car will run over, and you may not end up paying your cash back bonus to them when they file law suits against you.

*For you idiots out there, this is a satire. It is not intended to offend any individual or large car corporation. Especially not any large car corporation.*

I agree with quite a bit what you're saying here. Large companies are slaughtering any sort of appeal they have. However, they're changing.

In SUV ads traditionally, we've seen a lumbering gas-guzzler drivign alongside nature, surpassing obstacles, and even parking right next to deer (if you can do that, I'll cut out my face with a rusty fork). However, market researchers realized something fascinating about this - it wasn't the nature-loving men that were buying these behemoths, oh no, it was women.

That's right, women. In fact, women of the motherly-with-small-children variety. And there's even somewhat of a "natural" reason as well.

You see, women (with children, especially) want to be safe on the roads. It's the number one priority in most cases. You know what an SUV is? It's big. It stands twelve feet higher than anything else on the roads. And guess what? In a collision, the bigger car always wins. Those supposed five-star safety ratings and up-the-anus airbags sure help to reinforce that.

Women are also normally shorter than men. While I'm sure that the world has it's fair share of tall ladies, for the most part, women are simply genetically smaller. In the past, they've had problems because of this. The seats in cars were generally made for men to use, and men, being taller, haven't had much of a problem with this. Now, with more and more cars being bought up by women, we're seeing complaints that they can't see out of the windshield. Solution? Power-adjustable seats. Makes perfect sense, don't it? Make them lower for the man, and then when the wife comes in to go pick up the kids from school (or whatever stereotypical things they do in life, like shopping), they can push the seats up.

It doesn't end there. Women like a car that suits their needs. Well, don't mini-vans have all of those useful features? Of course they do. Then why, do you ask, are women still buying SUVs? They cost more in down payments and gasolene, after all, and people want to save their money. Well, I'll tell you - it's because mini-vans are ugly. Women simply don't like the way they look. Let's face it - they're bland, borning, and don't come in many different shapes and sizes. With an SUV, now, you get all of a mini-van's features, plus better looks. And of course, we know that looks are always the most important thing to consider when buying a car.

Now, here's a suggestion for the car companies: make better-looking vans. Doesn't that make sense? People will be happier with the lower short- and long-term cost advantages, and they'll also have a motor vehicle that looks like something you could pick up chicks (or in this case, guys) in.

Of course, this isn't going to happen in the near future. Motor companies are smart, or they wouldn't be around right now. They know how to make money, as much money as possible. Why should they spend extra money in order to make less money?

So, if you have something against them, deal with it. It's not going to change a whole lot in the future, except perhaps the ads, which more and more often are featuring mothers. If you're still pissed off at the gas-guzzling behemoths known to mortals as Sport Utility Vehicles, then you're going to be pissed for quite a bit longer.

i no ay

Congratulations, you've spammed. Not only are "test" posts not allowed, but posts that are off-topic and/or don't contribute anything to the topic aren't allowed as well.

*reports*

Impa, I'm quite sure you've been told off about this before. I'm giving you a warning this time for spamming, and I'm deleting the unnessecary posts.