She'll pretty much have to

It's the holiday season, which means it must be time for an overload of the two types of commercials I hate possibly more than any others: luxury car ads where people walk into their driveway to find a Lexus with a bow on it, and ads for diamonds which suggest that literally the only way to appropriately express love for your girlfriend or wife is to shower her in expensive jewelry.



(There are far, far more egregious examples of bad diamond jewelry advertising, but I've been having a hard time finding them online, so this will have to do.)

I know that you always want a gift to be a surprise, but could this guy really not have found a better time to deliver this present than at a traffic light? This is a holiday ad - what's wrong with setting it in a living room like a normal person would? Or, you know, somewhere where the resulting show of affection wouldn't bother other people? Maybe I'm crazy.

Mercifully, this ad doesn't go anywhere near the all-too-frequent trope in diamond advertising of suggesting that anything less than an enormous rock is virtually cause for divorce. But it certainly does suggest that (a) there is no present better than a diamond of some sort (it doesn't even matter what! Engagement ring? Perfect! Necklace? Great! Odd-looking circle pendant? Whatever, it has diamonds on it!) and (b) diamonds = love. Remember, this is the industry that brainwashed a generation of television viewers into thinking that an engagement ring should cost two months' salary. Because nothing says "I love you" like "I just compromised our future financial security by spending 17% of my entire year's wages on this one ring," right?

Just look at slogans like "Every kiss begins with Kay." I mean, how fucking despicable is that? "If you want her to love you, or at least to show it, diamonds to the rescue!" Or the "He went to Jared" ads where men are shamed not for failing to buy diamonds but for failing to buy diamonds that are awesome enough for the status-hungry women they're dating or married to. Recently I've heard radio ads in which a woman tells her husband that if he's going to buy her a diamond, he'd better make sure he talks to an expert. Diamonds: When it's no longer the thought that counts! And of course let's not forget that even though "a diamond is forever," it should apparently be replaced with a newer, more expensive model every couple of years. Diamonds: When saying "I love you" isn't good enough, give her the shiny, costly gift she can brag to her friends about. Sickening.