#MoralityBoughtRetail
The fatigue of virtue by consumption
Remember, once upon a time, companies who paid big money for airtime during the Super Bowl kept their ads hush hush until the big reveal during the game? That stopped in 2014. Now companies pre-release their ads on YouTube to get the, hopefully positive, social media buzz going. So this year, we the public have known for at least a couple of days that commercial breaks were going to be lecture times. They are counting on us being in the mood to purchase some morality retail.
Budweiser is spinning a tall tale about immigration. Kind, welcoming Americans drink Bud. The company did better with the BudLight Be The Village, Ghost of Spuds commercial. (My village description, not theirs. I simply approve that message, although I admit it is still lecturing. It’s a play on A Christmas Carol, for goodness sake.)
This year Audi is well set to take take the top lecturer spot.
We still have halftime and celebrity pontification possiblities, but Audi will take the prize for this year’s scold. It is trying — and unwittingly failing spectacularly — to sell equality. The Truth About Cars takedown of the ad about the “high net worth feminist dad and his genetically superior daughter” is brutal and accurate.
Virtue signaling through consumption isn’t new. I started reading Jonah Goldberg back in the days when one still had to print favorite articles and read some of those old ones to memorization. This quote from “Don’t Play With Fire” is one of my political thought earworms:
Perhaps it was when Nietzsche pronounced God dead that so many decided to do His job themselves. Today, we are our own priests. Our truths are our own “inner truths.” Our morality is bought retail.
It is. We seem desperate for confirmation of our goodness. Clothing — Seven for All Mankind jeans, anyone? — and conspicuous items like cars, are great for signaling. Tote bags were all the rage for a while, including the Anya Hindmarch “Not a plastic bag” tote that started a riot when it went on sale. (Notice a pattern that many of these virtue signaling brands are high end. Interesting, huh?)
But food is the ancient signaler.
We have brand names like Innocent and Honest. Innocent even has a little halo in the logo. Honest goes for word play with Honest Tea, Honest Aid, and Honest Kids. Besides the issues mentioned in the links, it all makes for some cognitive dissonance when these juice boxes show up at a party when the kids are not modeling innocence or honesty.
Look around your grocery store shelves. They are full of Philippians 4:8: “Whatsoever things are Honest/Whatsoever things are True…” Just, Pure, Lovely. We can buy everything but Chastity. Nobody is selling Chastity.
2015 was better, an homage to fatherhood. Companies had finally gotten the message that audiences did not care for the Doofus Dad trope. Last year had weird ads (that puppy monkey baby one comes to mind). But it was 2016, when everything was weird.
This year, we are back to the lectures and morality bought retail. It is not a welcome return.
