The areas of our lives touched by advertising have been growing like kudzu over the years, and have long passed the line of good sense much less good taste. Every time one leaves the house these days (or stays home for that matter) he or she seems to be assaulted by yet another way, another space, in which advertisers are peddling their wares.
Promotional videos on supermarket checkout lines and placards on shopping carts. On passing buses, On school vending machines. On cereal boxes. On tiles worked into pedestrian streets. In doctors’ waiting rooms. On the back of park benches. Hanging from buildings. On tee shirts and purses.
The other day I went to a self-service gas station. I paid my fill-up charges at the counter and went out to pump some gas. Behind me I heard a loud screeching from someone who sounded well out of control. Afraid to turn lest I have a fight on my hands, it took me several seconds to realize there was a small video screen mounted on the gas pump screeching out that I had to rid myself of my present vehicle and buy the new model whatever.
I’ve long become accustomed to ads on cereal boxes, of course, and some other food packages. I am even used to seeing some fruits like bananas with product labels on them, like the word Dole I sometimes see on bananas I buy from my local market — though the idea behind this, that I will henceforth buy only Dole bananas in consequence, strikes me as idiotic.
The other day, however, my own advertising red line was crossed. I was peeling a banana at home in preparation for adding it to my cereal, when I happened to focus on the little red label on its skin. I had thought it was the Dole tag. But no, It was actually a tiny ad for the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.
This was a banana too far. It brought forth fears of genetically altered poultry with some chicken farmer’s name bred into its wings with writing that only appears when hot sauce is applied. Or oat flakes that sing a jingle when milk is added. Or sneakers that won’t allow you tie their laces until a bar code from a box of big chain pizza is passed over a computer chip on the sneakers’ toe.
I’ve seen the future on a banana peel. And it didn’t make me happy.
More about this writer at: “This God-Awful Political Season (In Verse).”