Laugh

Laugh until the marketing shills have to change their tack. Laugh until all billboards are just polite requests. “Please investigate our new product online if you have a moment. We’re really quite proud of it. Thank you ever so much.”

We didn’t have a TV for most of my childhood, and it’s scary to look back and notice its efficiency, before and after. Its introduction brought neediness; I found my young self distressed that I did not have all the toys and clothes I wanted. After I learned what an Eddie Bauer edition car was (precisely what we didn’t have—tinted power windows, premium sound system, leather everywhere), I used to play a game in my head: each time I saw a car I fancied, I’d say/think “I want that in Eddie Bauer.” Eventually it was just shortened to “That,” and, although inaudible, it didn’t count unless I formed the word with my mouth. I spent a few years touching my tongue to the back of my front teeth, quietly coveting a dozen or dozens of cars each day. “That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That.”

A young boy consciously cataloging all the things he’d never have—how depressing.

But it was precisely the desired outcome.

Now days I can’t watch television for more than a couple minutes without becoming apoplectic. Hernia-inducing levels of rage. “How dare they insult our intelligence like that? Cleansing micro-beads? Really!?” and on and on.

So I try to laugh instead. I laugh to drive away the knowledge that marketing ‘wisdom’ still works on a great many people. I laugh in hopes of looking like less of a cynic. I laugh to try and broadcast the insanity of it all.