Truthteller
7 Sep
Remember those ads from TheTruth.com? In your face and often shocking, those commercials attempted to educate young people about the dangers of smoking in a way that was much more memorable than the ”Just Say No” drug campaign.
I haven’t seen them in a while so I don’t know if they are still running, but I realized that a similar technique would be a fantastic way to educate parents on the effects of the kind of crap they’re feeding their kids.
THE FOLLOWING COMMERCIAL MESSAGE HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY:
Scene 1: [8-year-old boy eats Fruit by the Foot or some other fake fruit snack]
Scene 2: [Same 8-year-old boy. Now with hair like this: ]
[And eyes bugging out of his head. The boy starts jumping up and down. Then he begins to shake his hands. His eyes twitch. You think he's doing a cute little dance until he starts bumping into chairs and other nearby children. Then he quite literally starts climbing the walls. He is out of control!]
SCENE 3: WAKE UP CALL!!!! [YOURS TRULY with a bullhorn, perhaps?]
The fact of the matter is, such a commercial would not be far off from the type of marketing crap shown in between your kid’s favorite cartoons. In fact, food companies design commercials with the aim to inspire our children to ask for these snacks…convince them they can possess this type of “high energy” and prowess. Emphasis on possessed.
In this real life commercial below, the kid eats an Airhead and his head explodes. He is, as the announcer narrates, ”extremely out of control.”
Which, if you think about it, is kinda…true.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAf9VeijXoo&fs=1&hl=en_US]
I totally agree and I think you should start filming tomorrow! You made a comment awhile back about while it is considered acceptable to tell a smoker they shouldn’t be smoking, it is completely unacceptable to tell an obese person they shouldn’t be eating that… why is this? Why is the general public concerned with some aspects of health and not others?
Yeah Angie! Glad you’re with me. Do you know a good film crew?
Those are REALLY good questions you pose. And I think a lot of it has to do with fear…fear of the enormity of the problem…fear of the implications to their every day lives and choices they make. Fear that all that they’ve previously thought is wrong.
It’s really not that bad over here, people. I promise.