Archive for the ‘Blahg’ Category
16 August 2008 – 11:00 PM
With higher gas prices and “saving the environment” on consumers’ minds, car companies have to use these topics to their advantage. All car commercials seem to mention their EPA MPG ratings now, conveniently always citing their highway MPG rating. (I live in Los Angeles, so “highway MPG” has no real meaning to me because I’m rarely not driving in stop-and-go traffic. And, I’m going to bet that’s the case for most other American city drivers, too.) So, how do car companies get consumers to buy their cars without actually improving their vehicles’ fuel economy? Define what “good” fuel economy means because, c’mon, there wasn’t an official definition anyway.
There’s this GMC commercial where an official suit-type says that most Americans don’t think of fuel economy when they think of a crossover (a term that I had never heard before these car commercials). He says that the GMC Acadia gets better fuel economy than the Honda Pilot (which is not saying much). The commercial ends with the directive, “Look it up,” and shows www.fueleconomy.gov.
So, I looked it up. I see that the Acadia FWD model has a highway rating 1 MPG better than the Pilot’s 2WD model, but that the combined rating is the same. Call me cynical, but is this supposed to be impressive? Is 24 MPG on the highway impressive?
My guess is that part of the effectiveness of this campaign might lie in the authority of the phrase, “Look it up.” It may seem like because they told me to look it up, they’re confident about the answer and I don’t need to confirm it. (The answer being, “The Acadia has ‘good’ fuel economy.”) In fact, my reaction to “Look it up” should be “You look it up, douche bag” or “I already knew that, douche bag” or maybe just “USA! USA!”
For the most part, I’ve been living in a bubble about fuel economy. I drive a small car and have only been driving regularly for a few years. Unless I’m moving across the country, I usually drive about half the annual mileage of the average American. I’m lucky, I guess. I tend to live relatively close to where I work and near all conveniences. The gas price increases over the last year have meant sacrificing about one or two take-out meals per month for me. When people talk about how much they’re “hurting” from gas prices, I guess these people have to eat out four times less per month.
Posted in Television | Tags: advertising, driving, GMC Acadia | No Comments »
29 July 2008 – 9:00 PM
There’s this commercial for the Honda Pilot where a Pilot driver picks up two guys, and one of the guys is stuck inside cement. The driver calls the Pilot “really fuel efficient” and then the guy in the cement chimes in with “It’s true” and quotes something he read on a blog. Then the voiceover calls the Pilot “surprisingly fuel efficient.”
So, I got curious about what Surpisingly Fuel Efficient™ means to Honda. This is what I found out from www.fueleconomy.gov:
I actually wasn’t surprised. At a combined 19 MPG or 18 MPG rating, the Pilot is only slightly more “fuel efficient” than a Hummer.
Posted in Television | Tags: advertising, driving, Honda Pilot | No Comments »
28 July 2008 – 1:30 AM
Something’s been on my mind lately, and I figure I’d do what any other person of my generation would do: write about it in my blog. (Actually, I guess I should write about this on Facebook or MySpace, but since I have my own Web site…) I’ve been thinking about the phrase, “That’s so gay.” Along with sagging pants and the ’80s, I had hoped that this phrase would go away once I left high school. And it has, for the most part, at least in my world.
This phrase is commonly called a “playground taunt” and I guess I’m lucky that the first time I heard the phrase wasn’t until 11th grade. It’s not surprising really. If I wasn’t hanging out by myself growing up, I usually was around polite, straight-A students. I actually remember the scenario in which I first heard “That’s so gay,” and it shocked me when it happened, but it was uttered by someone in the “regular program” and, in my Oscar Wilde imitation, it seemed like something I could attribute to the lower classes.
However, the phrase is widespread, yet seemingly innocuous. You’re just as likely to hear the phrase in the conference room as you are on the playground. Some people who use the phrase claim that it has no connection to gay people. They say it’s like the word “gypped” — most people don’t know that the word is derogatory towards gypsies. But, c’mon, how many bonafide gypsies are there wandering the halls of American high schools? (As a side note, my guitar teacher in high school sought to motivate us while teaching us a somber ballad by saying, “Let’s pretend we’re a bunch of gypsies and we just got caught shoplifting.” I actually had no idea why she suggested that, because I didn’t know anything about gypsies at the time.)
It’s easy to see how “gypped” has lost its context, but what is the most common use of the word “gay” in today’s world? To say that “gay” doesn’t connote gay people seems to be idiotic, even if the idiot who said it doesn’t think so.
Is it worth fighting over? Probably not. People can use the words “bad” and “filthy” to describe something good or cool. I guess they can use a word that meant happy, then homosexual, to mean something bad (and by bad, I don’t mean good). However, I think the core irritation I have about “That’s so gay” is that the phrase itself has lost context. It reduces a bunch of other good arguments into one simple, flippant phrase. I think many things that get called “gay” are bad. But they’re bad because they’re so mainstream, they’re so bland, they’re so outdated, they’re so poor quality. They’re so acceptable. So c’mon, that’s not gay. That’s most of American society.
Posted in Politics | Tags: gay | 1 Comment »
