The impulse to procreate has been deep inside us for hundreds of years, probably. I don’t know, I haven’t done the research. Through the ages it has taken more and more to get us going, from the stolen glimpse of an illicit ankle in the 19th Century, to a full-blown goat orgy for today’s discerning masturbator. I have become party to some information that might be of interest to whoever reads this blog. These shameful, dirty feelings have been usurped. There are people out there who have learnt how to make you buy things, by hijacking your privates. They do it every day and you don’t even realise it. They do it on the telly, they do it on the radio, they do it on podcasts, they do it in magazines and newspapers, they do it on the internet, they even do it on busses and bus stops!
I checked Wikipedia and this picture is thought to be the first time these bastards started manipulating our urges, and what is it advertising? It is essentially an early attempt by a tobacco company to body shame people from the middle-ages. For what purpose, I hear you ask. My theory is, it was to make them feel so bad about their appearance that they took up the filthy habit in order to distract potential suitors from how disgusting they looked, sneaky eh? They have even changed our actual body shapes with their clever little tricks, the beautiful lady in the picture would be the one being fat shamed in the consumer manipulations of modern times. I saw a poster on the tube once, it was very similar to this except the model was an adolescent girl in a bikini asking passers-by if they were ‘beach-body ready’. It seemed to be suggesting that unless we can somehow morph into a minuscule, unblemished, female child, that we will not be welcome at any of the places where the sea meets the shore, crazy. Never-the-less, I have begun a series of radical surgeries, accompanied by hormone suppressants and Protein World shakes and I should be beach acceptable by 2023.
What makes you happy? Is it a sense of achievement at completing a difficult task? Is it creating a meaningful relationship with your friends and family? Well, none of those things make me happy because these slimy creatures have burrowed into my brain and altered it on an emotional level. Now I am only concerned with how I appear to others and whether I have the shiniest shoes, the smartest television or the latest Chinese spy phone. I don’t really care for genuine human interaction nowadays, I now see every aspect of life as a never-ending game of petty one-upmanship. What is the unconditional love in my children’s eyes, compared to the slick operating system on my new conflict mineral packed iPhone? It almost never lets me down, not like those bloody kids, demanding attention every five minutes.
