Sofa sale now on - huge discounts.

[davywavy]

The thing about not owning a television is that I tend to miss the minutae of cultural phenomena. Whilst I can keep up with the shifting sands of who is famous this week through the celeb pages in the newspaper and Holy Moly, it's the little things - the indicators of what is really going on in society - which pass me by. The sort of things which Ozymandias is looking for when he's watching his television wall.
So naturally, I spent a lot of time over Christmas watching telly (Or at least, that's my excuse. Cultural awareness training. Mmm-hmm.) and the thing which struck me most strongly was just how crap most telly is*. The next thing was that there seemed to be four major themes in the adverts:

1) Quit smoking now!
2) Lose weight and/or join a gym!
3) Sofa sale now on!
4) Pay of your debts with a loan.**

From this I can only assume that there's a sizable demographic for whom Christmas involved slumping down on the sofa for a fag, breaking it due to being so fat, and then having to go into debt to buy a new one. Does that match your experience?


^{*Note to Dr. Who fans. It was rubbish. Get over it.
**As a statement, "Pay off your debts with a loan" makes as much sense as "Fight for peace", "Eat yourself thin" and "Invest in public services".}

Comments

[danfossydan.livejournal.com]

You can never have too many cheap sofas...

[mrmmarc.livejournal.com]

Ah. you have been watching daytime TV (shudders). Well...
1- Quit smoking now adverts have picked up since the ban. Mostly cos a bunch of people realised that they could rip of smokers for products that are highly expensive and have no proven succes rate (patches, gum, inhalers, etc).
2- Not seen THAT many of those adverts. Have seen an awful lot of 'Eat this yogart and it will make you shit really well' ads.
3- DFS sale- now in its 24 stright year without break...
4- Did you miss the 'Want to get rid of your debts? Why not declare bankrupt (only we won't call it that)'.

Plus you seem to have missed the plethora of other adverts which reveal the demographic...
-Are you sat at home skiving of work claiming disability cos you had a minor accident? Why not ring "Lawyers4LazyPikeys' and you could sue someone with our special 'No win, no fee (and if we think you cannot win we will tell you to go fuck yourself)' service...
-Do you have any cheap gold earings that your chav tastic ex-boyfriend sent you? Yes we want your yellow gold- send it to us in an envelope we have prepared for just such an occsion and we will send you a load of cash but not as much as we are making cos your too fricken stupid to see what the price of gold is doing.
- "Look at this puppy! Look at this fricken puppy! Give us money or else we will shoot it!"
-"Are you 75 and dying? We WILL give you life insurance if you give us your house..."

I think those adverts sum up England entirely in 2010... oh wait- we would need one more adevrt to TRUELY sum up England right now...
-"Do you find life confusing? Are you scared by the complexities of our society? Does the ambiguity of modern living and the frantic pace of todays technologically advanced society make you bewildered and confused? Don't worry- just blame the whole thing on foreigners coming here and stealing our jobs! Don't want to bother forming a political opinion either and would rather just say all MP's are criminals! Yes, come join the rest of us retards and buy your Sky Digibox right now... Sky- we would call ourselves Fox, but then you'd realise we spend all our time insulting your quaint nation you retards!"
there- thats England right now...

And this is why we need a BBC- one channel blissfully free of ads...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I had forgotten the adverts which offer to help you sue someone if you injured yourself when you broke your settee.

[(Anonymous)]

BBC - two channels, radio, £40 a year.

I'd buy that.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Me too.

BBC4 rocks.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Low-cost & advertising free isn't a viable business model for a worthwhile national broadcaster though. Higher cost or advertising (or both, like Sky). It's take your pick, I'm afraid.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Substitute child actor having homework torn up by parent for a variant of the puppy ads. "Give us money and we can Stop This Now!"

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

I've probably mentioned before somewhere here how culturally disenfranchised I feel.

My evening flick through the EPG usually goes something like this:

BBC1. Ummm, no.
BBC2. Nope, not tonight.
BBC3. Maybe. On mature reflection...maybe not.
BBC4. Yes! Yes!
ITV1. NO!
ITV2. NO!!
ITV3. Sigh.
ITV4. Bored
CH4. Under no circumstances.
Sky3. NOOOOOO!

Flings remote away. Puts on CD.

[diamondkelt.livejournal.com]

I love the ** explanation.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

We've just had a decade of investment in public services, and it's damn near bankrupted us.