Where I learned to sketch out my guest

[click to enlarge]

Text: "Where I learned manners. Where I learned patience. Where I learned to impress my guest. My kitchen was designed for my world. Simplicity meets convenience with the Rezno faucet by Moen. Designed for life. Yours."

As she gingerly examines the Cucumis metuliferus, or Horned melon, that this horny melonhead has just handed her (passive-aggressively communicating his fear of vagina dentata and incapacity for intimacy), this woman fake-smiles, buying herself time to calculate how long it'll take to grab the knife and sprint to the door, and thanking God she hadn't touched the roofie-laced wine.

Are there really still aspiring metrosexuals out there who can be duped into splurging on design by fawning appeals to their supposedly seductive aesthetic judgment? Maybe if he had spent money on some decent food she would be impressed. But a phallic piece of plumbing hardware? Gross - me - out.

Profit to the power of insecurity

This ad's argument, put in economic terms, is that the man's awareness of the "sunk costs" of the diamonds he's bought for the woman will exponentially increase his commitment to having sex with her alone -- since, having already spent so much money in order to have sex with his current partner, the prospect of going out and spending a whole bunch more on diamonds for a new parter seems too expensive.

"Hearts On Fire?"  More like "Hearts Incinerated."

Of course, economic theory argues that it is always a mistake to take sunk costs into account when making decisions about future investments.

When the burgers and 'ritas are as awkward and staged as the party

Here's another common scenario that often happens in real life: all your hot gay guy friends come over, put their feet all over your kitchen furniture, and devour burgers and strawberry daquiris at 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning while telling you all about the fun nasty rumors they know.

*****BZZZ***** wrong, this never happens.

In actuality, the Peter Gallagher look-alike and Mr. Preppy Peek-of-Midrift might have had too many of the daquiries the night before, but they would have been prepared for them by somebody else at a bar, they would not have called them "'ritas," and the awkward 38-year-old in the polo would have been nowhere in sight.  You guys would have used the "Griddler" that one of your aunts got you for graduation exactly once, to make chicken, then passive-aggressively fought over who had to scrape the grease and burned meat off it while it sat all gross and crumb-y on the counter.

Also, you would not be putting multiple hamburgers all on one plate as if you were operating some kind of weird Female Recent College Graduate White Castle, and Peek-of-Midrift would not be pouring his drink sideways into his mouth from half a foot away.

Please let's just now delve into the embarrassing copy:

She did what?  He didn't!  Sometimes, the greatest dish isn't the gossip...

Wait--but that sounded like pretty good "dish"--and it was the gossip. O.K.  Also, by not putting these theoretical quotations into quotes, the ad creates the impression that it is talking to itself.  Which, of course, it sort of is...

...Invite Cuisinart into your kitchen (or what you're calling your kitchen)...

HA!  Cuisinart gets me.  They know about how tiny my pathetic Murray Hill apartment is.  I bet they even know that I keep my shoes in the oven!  Awwwwwww!

Let your Cuisinart® Griddler® and Blender get into the mix, and see how gossip can leave a great taste in your mouth.

Uh...that's what...she said?

Come ON copywriters, this is just awful.  And the insinuation that using these superfluous appliances to "feed all your friends" is going to ensure you "get the secrets," "tidbits," and "the 411" is just plain sad.

Cuisinart--you did what?  You made a terrible ad!  You didn't!  Oh, but you did.

Restless for a New Me

Text: "Just as I was reaching a point in my life where I was beginning to feel part of something, I've become restless for a new me."

So, you're starting to feel part of something.  Good: that is, more or less, what all psychologists agree is the #1 secret to living a happy and productive life.  Oh--but, it's just so boring and constricting to be a part of something, because once you become part of a group, the group starts to rely upon you to conduct yourself with some integrity, which usually means a degree of consistency.  But it's impossible to be consistent like that when you're constantly reinventing yourself through consumption, so--fuck that "being a part of something"; time to go shopping for a new identity.

So cool, I'm ready to go splurge on surf-culture-inspired bikinis.  Oh, wait though--hold the phone--

"When you know who you are, new ideas are icing."

Okay, about-face much?  From capriciously deciding to abandon all community in order to reinvent oneself, to a self-satisfied musing on the sufficiency of self-knowledge and superficial superfluity of innovation?

Are these two lines of text two different people talking/writing?  Is the thing in type like something one idiot wrote, and then some other idiot came along and graffitied the other thing in script?  If so, why?  and who are these people?  and what does it have to do with board shorts?  What?

So...am I going shopping or not?

Usually Quicksilver ads are just cute sunny photos of sporty girls surfing and snowboarding.  I think they need to go back to that.

Connect with Douches You've Never Met

Another preposterously unbelievable scenario, brought to you by The Yale Club (if I recall correctly, in the pages of the Yale alumni magazine): You stop by the Yale Club, and there you "connect" with "friends you've never met."  First of all, something about the phrase "friends you've never met" sounds very ominous to me.  It sounds like something out of The Grudge.  But more importantly, these un-friends I'm going to connect with are a bunch of deeply douche-y multicultural drunks in head-to-toe Brooks Brothers?  Sign me up!?

The photo is so awkward.  Whoever staged it has created a sort of mobius strip or M.C. Escher cartoon of an impossible social moment: Black guy is making a hilarious point to Asian guy, but Asian guy is not laughing as much as Black guy is at his own joke (maybe because Black guy is so tipsy he's about to spill his beer?  his expression certainly suggests he's had a few too many); possibly-Latina girl is smiling at Asian guy, even though he's not saying anything; the people actually in closest proximity to Black guy--Black girl and White guy--are laughing at Black guy, but he is ignoring them.  And in the midst of it all, the two women (who must have been told to look more "sexy") are weirdly flaunting their bodies in a way that seems inappropriate to the situation and additionally would never happen inside the sexless atmosphere of the actual Yale Club.

Finally, I love that everyone is DRINKING.  That seems to be the most important subtext of the ad: belong to the Yale Club so you can come have a big fat DRINK.  Every single one of these people seems to be clinging to his/her cocktail for dear life.  Adding to the palpable sense of social awkwardness and desperation, the shot is so brightly lit that it looks like they're closing the place down and the bartender has turned the lights on on them.

Then finally, the tagline down at the bottom-right revives the pall of ominousness: "The Yale Club of New York City: It's Where You Belong."  Though this is meant to be a sort-of-playing-on-words way of saying, "it's a place where you'll experience a sense of belonging," it actually comes across as more like an insult/threat, like, "you have earned and deserve the terrible fate of being locked inside the Yale Club with the rest of the d-bags."

Nice going, Yale Club of New York.  This creepy, alchoholic, stilted ad is amazing.

This Top Model and Her Friend

Text: "Why is this top model giving her friend Pravda Vodka?"  Why indeed?  Well:

Text: "The top model is giving Pravda Vodka because she is knowledgeable...She has read the results of taste competitions.  The American Academy of Taste in 2006 and the World Beverage Championships in 2004 both ranked Pravda as the best superior vodka.  Better than Grey Goose, Belvedere, Level...The very best of all."

This is the best ad ever.

I mean, is it a joke???  The fonts?  The layout?  The two-page spread that's just the same photo twice?  The suggesting that this woman is a "top model."  The idea that a top model would give a man alcohol, and that the man would be another model -- and be her "friend"!  The idea that these two are friends.  The assertion that a model can be "knowlegeable."  The assertion that reading the results of taste competitions for vodkas qualifies a model as "knowlegeable."  The very notion that any model would read the results of the 2004 World Beverage Championships.  The assumption that we accept, on any level, that this utterly fake narrative is taking place, even in the most remote fantastic fantasyland dreamworld.

I've thought about it a lot, and I have to conclude that, no: this ad was not intended to be a joke.  It is too perfect to have been deliberately planned by anyone to be as intensely satisfying as it is.  I love it forever and ever, and it is amazing.  I know this, because I am knowledgeable and I have read the results of The Amazing Russian Vodka Ad Competition of 2009 and it ranked this Pravda ad as the most amazing superior ridiculous ad.  Better than Russian Ice, better than Georgi.  The very best of all.