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I really wish I could find the longer version of this commercial, which is AGGRESSIVELY TERRIBLE while this one is merely stupid and annoying.  But you work with what you have.


So.  The reason I would rather have shown you the longer version is that in that one, I think it's pretty clear that both of these people are insufferable, rather than basically just the dude.

[Guy is sitting looking at a statue]
Woman: "Are you a fan of DeMoissier?"
Guy's Internal Monologue: "DeMoissi-who?  Okay, you know you're smart.  You just ordered a premium roast coffee and a savory Sausage McMuffin for only a dollar each off McDonald's Dollar Menu at breakfast, so..."

Please note: if it takes you this many seconds to come up with what is at best a halfway coherent response, everyone will know you're full of shit.  Look at the woman - she's already gotten bored of waiting for an answer and is writing something down in her planner, presumably "Do not ever, ever fuck this guy."

Guy: "He has a certain... je ne sais quoi."

Fuck you.  Since when does "being smart" have to equate to "having heard of, and formed an opinion on, every modern sculpture artist in existence?"  This is the kind of shit someone who thinks they are extremely smart came up with.  Ooh, and French!  The language of smart people, right?  That's what I heard.

In the extended version of this commercial, the woman replies, "Oh, tu parles français!"  Let's be clear here: "Je ne sais quoi" is a well-enough-known phrase in English that I don't believe for a second that someone who actually spoke French as a second language would hear it and assume that the person they were talking to was bilingual.  Also, as someone who actually does parle un peu de français, it's pretty shitty for that woman to immediately use the singular tu form of the second-person rather than the plural vous form, which is more typically used in formal address, like, you know, when you're speaking to some stranger in the park.  Perhaps she's just being patronizing because she recognizes he's full of shit, but I don't think that's the intent.  Although if you type "Oh, you speak French" into Google Translate, it (properly) gives you the more formal "vous parlez français" form.  I guess this ad was written by someone who took French, but just not since sophomore year of high school.

Oh, the guy's response to that, by the way, is "Oh yeah, all the time," which is just a continued stream of bullshit.  McDonald's: it won't make you smarter, but it'll sure make you feel like you have to pretend to be a genius everywhere you go!  But this really is a commercial all about behaving weirdly in front of strangers.  The guy feels intimidated by the woman's seeming intellect and has to try and impress her even though she's a total stranger because, I don't know, smart woman in business suits are inherently emasculating, right, fellas?  But meanwhile, the woman is sort of a bitch here, between assuming the guy just chilling on a park bench must be a fan of modern art, assuming he speaks French for no good reason (forcing him to keep bullshitting), and using tu like she's talking to a five-year-old.  Other than that, though, a couple of winning characters here, McDonald's.  Maybe we could have a whole series of ads where the guy has to keep feigning expertise to avoid looking like a schmuck, while internally feeling confident in his own intelligence because hey, he didn't buy a seven-dollar Sausage McMuffin at the artisanal breakfast co-op like some sucker.

Most delightful aspect of this ad: the supremely awkward way the guy is required to hold the cup of coffee just so the "McCafe" logo is not obscured by his hand.  In case you're deaf and wanted to know what this was an ad for, I guess.

Domu ads. Stupid. Annoying. Chicago.

This probably falls into the category of "stuff only I care about," since unless you take public transportation in Chicago you're never going to see these things. But they've just been blanketing the El and buses lately, which means I'm stuck learning two unlikely things about some total stranger I couldn't care less about.

Because there's no way I'm going to get a picture of these things from a moving train, I'm stuck with the ones inside cars or at stops I actually use. So trust me when I say there are way worse ones than the ones below. For instance, every male appearing in these ads seems to have come right out of "Look at This Fucking Hipster" right down to the clearly ironic ridiculous facial hair.

I mean, look at these fucking things. So, okay. Presumably the idea is that you're trying to sell the viewer on the product by showing a wide range of people who use the service (right down to the varying of the neighborhoods, which is probably the most important part anyway). But how does it help to go with weird, ridiculous, unrealistic and/or esoteric professions and interests? Take this one. Slam poets and urologists? Both of them? Did they meet at a urology convention and realize they both loved slam poetry, or did they meet at a slam poetry session and discover they both happened to be urologists? I mean, come on. It would be hacky enough to make some ad be all "Hey, wouldn't it be super funny if this person was a slam poet and a urologist?" But pretending that this describes two people living together makes me absolutely incapable of taking this bullshit seriously. Is this supposed to be lighthearted and I'm thinking too hard about it? Probably. I don't care. It's stupid and I have to see shit like this eight times every day. If they weren't so ubiquitous I'd have snorted and moved on.

"Muse?" Guess what - go fuck yourself. Is there a single noun you could use to describe a person that would make them sound more insufferable other than obvious pejoratives? I say no. And while this might be stereotyping, is there a universe in which this woman looks like, of all things, an air traffic controller? She looks more like a waitress at a vegan restaurant who goes to art school during the day.

Thanks (I guess) to what appears to be the website of the woman who took the photos, I was also able to get a hold of this one. Holy shit, LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTER. Worse yet, this appears to be part of maybe the most bizarre viral marketing attempt of all time - that Twitter account has been posting for several months, mostly about podiatry, but if you read the thing it's pretty clear (I think) that it's being ginned up by someone who isn't a real doctor, it links only to Domu.com and gives no actual links to or contact info for the supposed business, and Google doesn't give any indication that anyone named Sven O. Svenson is actually a podiatrist in the area. Also, if I walked into a doctor's office and they looked like this motherfucker, I'd be out of there faster than you can say "This is the weirdest fake shit I have ever seen in my life."

According to Liska + Associates, the agency responsible for this nonsense, "For the next evolution of marketing, Liska worked with Domu on a series of ads that feature the human side of Domu—the cool, interesting Chicagoans who use the site." Here's the problem: it's hard to feature the human side of something when you use humans who are so obviously fake, and when half of them have goofy, esoteric jobs or interests that virtually no one can relate to, and every picture is the most hipster-looking douchebag available. I can't recall seeing a single one that's just a normal looking dude in a business suit. They all have to have weirdly teased-up hair, or stupid ironic beards, or be dressed like they're on their way to a poetry reading in 1997. None of these people look "cool" or "interesting" unless you're already that kind of a schmuck, which means I'm forced to assume that Domu decided that their only real audience, I guess the only people currently renting apartments in Chicago, was hipsters. In which case, I guess, mission accomplished?

Dear advertisers: making the people in your ads into ridiculous extremes of human behavior does not make them seem more real (because how could I possibly come up with a person who was a slam poet and a urologist???). It makes them seem fake as shit. Even if these were all real people and were accurate recountings of their jobs and passions, I would have come up with some other people whose descriptions were closer to the peak of the bell curve, not several standard deviations toward the far end. Because these ads are stupid unbelievable bullshit and don't sell me on a fucking thing.

And the award for least comprehensible plot in an ad this year goes to

I guess the footage in this ad was just so golden that they had to keep it, even when they decided to change the entire plot.



Kid: "Hey Parker, wanna race home? Bet I can beat you there."

Unless you are blind, it is staggeringly obvious from the visual cues - the way the kid gestures with his hand, the way Parker takes off running, Parker's hiding behind a tree (clearly an advantage in a footrace), etc. - that this commercial has nothing to do with "racing home." Parker is going to get the shit kicked out of him if he doesn't make it to his house ahead of these kids. I'm guessing that focus groups did not like the plot of this ad, and thus it was changed, but the random kid playing Parker had already been paid ten million dollars and so Chrysler felt like they had to overdub it rather than simply spend six hours shooting a new version of the ad in which the kids were actually racing. Or maybe they just figured it wouldn't make sense regardless and opted to cut their losses.

Voiceover: "With its 43 safety features, like the Parkview rear back-up camera..."
Mother: "Hi, sweetie! There you are!"

What? So... she was looking for him, because they needed to drive somewhere I guess, but he only just arrived home from school and jumped into the open trunk of the car, and meanwhile she was in the front seat with her seat belt already on. Could the plot of this ad possibly be any more incomprehensible?

Voiceover: "Electronic vehicle information center, and rear cross path detection system, now available in the Safety Tech package, the Chrysler Town and Country is a safe bet to make."

Meanwhile, the bullies sit on the lawn... of Parker's house. Are they just going to wait for him to come back and kick his ass then? And really, what did the car have to do with any of this? "Oh man, if the Chrysler Town and Country didn't have an electronic vehicle information center, Parker's ass would be grass right about now!"

Honestly, is it that hard to tell a coherent (or in any way relevant) story in 30 seconds? It's 30 seconds! How can it be that difficult to hold your plot together? I mean, let's face it - even if the commercial had never been changed and was always about bullying, it still makes no sense after about the ten-second mark, because why is the mom already in the car and where are they going? Why wouldn't she just pick him up from school, rather than him having to run a significant distance home only to get immediately into the car and drive away? Is that even his house? If it's not, how did he know she would be there? What the fuck does any of this have to do with safety features, other than that an announcer is listing a few as we watch this nonsense unfold?

The one piece of evidence that the ad actually involves a "race" is Parker sticking out his tongue and then grinning at the bullies as his mom drives away. I can see doing that if you just won a good-natured race. I can't really see doing that knowing that you have to go back to school the next day, with the exact same bullies, and eventually you probably won't be able to outrun them given your enormous backpack and their lack of same. But hey, none of the rest of the ad's plot makes sense. Why should I expect it to start doing so in the last ten seconds?