Zombies and infomercials: an undead chronicle

Megan Crothers

Evacuate now. Run far, far away, and don’t ever look back. An unseen beast that eats innocence for breakfast is hunting you. No, this isn’t an H5N1-H1N1 combo virus or the Aporkalypse.

This, comrades, is your television set.

It’s funny how we never realize how much we need something until we have it and experience its uses. Advertisers are privy to this sort of classified information. It must have been leaked somehow, because now consumers have become drooling slaves to petty infomercial trinkets, myself included. Darn it, Billy Mays, they’re using you for your friendly face and soothing, hypnotic voice. It is terrifying yet compelling how his screeching sales pitch lulls its way into my bank account. Billy, darling, please stop yelling at me.

The worst part is that Mays knows what he is doing … and he isn’t alone.

Towel enthusiast Vince Offer changed my life. He drew my attention with his kind eyes and assurances that the little sticker reading “made in Germany” spells q-u-a-l-i-t-y. I never knew that absorbent synthetic towels could simplify my life so drastically. My troubles are over. I shall sleep soundly tonight, perchance to dream! How on Earth did I ever survive without it? ShamWow! completes me.

And that scene from the Snuggie commercial in which the woman struggles to answer the phone while trapped in the deadly confines of her psycho ex-blanket, really hit home. Truly and forsooth, I almost wept, for I have been there as well and can feel her excruciating anguish. She learned, as many others will: the Snuggie is your only answer to icy death, your one escape from blanket smothering.

This is all just a sickening ploy developed by rabid advertisers looking to make a tasty buck. They’re like zombies. No matter how many times you shoot them down, they always return, hankering for a bite of Benjamin. Until we deliver a swift headshot or premeditated blunt-force trauma, the advertising undead will forever plague us. Our only defense is to fashion armor out of Old Navy performance fleece and OxiClean, armed with Vidalia Slice-Wizards and Swiffer SweeperVacs for good measure.

TV-pwnage: it’s about to get saucy.

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