America at its Best: Making & Marketing Dumb Products
When GM let someone's zany, wine-drunk aunt design a car
The hula-hoop, the pet rock, the ways in which Americans revolutionized the totality of mindless consumption for mass audiences across the globe is not just unique, but a story that will resonate with herds of mindless consumers for the ages. Humanity is the story of creating increasingly better simulations (religion, books, video games, all other games of pretend, etc.), of which, the simulation is preferable to reality, and the only question of this “reality” is - “what kind and quality of simulation can you afford?” You’ll be judged by the shoes you wear, and the money in your bank account regardless.
As with constraint by way of the few, of the many, history is born, and in that, ever more novel needs, undifferentiated from “wants.” All is permitted? You fools! Do you know what you’ve unleashed on the world?!
Hundreds to thousands of years from now, no one will need to know anything about politics or academia in America (another episode of Roman Christianity, using the restroom where it eats and sleeps) - it is not a serious people, no eulogy of present or future could hardly know or recall them as “a people,” let alone one that can or should be “taken seriously.” This would be fatal to any being with an iota of self-reverence. The only thing the future will need to know about the past, is the Pet Rock.
The Pet Rock is just one stage in the evolution of American marketing, the imminence of an age stuck at the end of the same bridge that it burned, or, modernity’s future that will never arrive, and by its own fatal, intentional, design choices. That is, all ages exist within the mythos of their transcendental reality in the actions and productions born of the animating spirit of a people that manifests everywhere in a given culture’s materialism, or, fossil record of activity. It is fatal from the moment it begins, and past the moment it ends. The Ancient Jews had their Prophets to yell at them like crazy people, and the Holy Land to find (lol, what good religious nutjobs don’t think of themselves as “god’s special cult”); Vikings knew the Twilight of the Gods; Christians had the foretold return of Christ, but America’s transcendental reality is that of a nihilistic consumer orgy fueled more by jealousy, greed and hate, than love or Christian love. This transcendental reality is one that is scripted, edited, and regulated by three-times divorced advertising hacks; childless over-bearing karens who inflict their misplaced concern-trolling and raging emotions on the rest of us; soulless american psychopaths in governmental spook agencies, and of course, the FCC. Yes, there are endless other groups and powers in that soup, but who cares. It doesn’t end there, the plot is open to whoever else is Cosby enough, Weinstein enough, Epstein enough to force themselves onto whoever, whenever, however. The market is open for business, and absent any real vision, purpose or destination, absent gods and a future, arises the need, the default - to consume the pain away, especially in an irresponsible culture that promotes irresponsibility and stupidity at every juncture possible, be it in marketing, corporation, or state.
In this, one needs something more, something American, something LOUD that boldly yells, I might be mentally-ill, unstable, and very dangerous, but at least I’m fun!
Welcome to that future! It has more personality than anyone’s zany, wine-drunk aunt - and comes in garish dayglo-green! Cue extra claps on the drum machine - introducing the Pontiac Stinger!
AM/FM radio, and a FUNKY-looking CD player. Pullout AM-FM cassette player? Lots of hidden stash spots, storage bins under the seat and removable ice chest in the door (presumably for your pot or wine)?! Hidden tool kit (the air compressor and flash light are smart)! Vacuum cleaners?! Garden hose? A picnic kit, stove, and picnic table? Did someone vomit an episode of price is right merchandise into the car? No, it IS the car. It’s Barbie’s dream home, if Barbie’s dream home was a transformer that changed into an ugly car (hello, Solstice)! And nuclear neon green rather than Pepto-Bismol barbie pink. If this car were crayons, it would be writing everywhere it shouldn’t!
Now, this over-eager dash at a consolidated consumer future was ahead of its time in more ways than one. Not just attempting to smash all technologies into one device (car, hose, cd player, picic table, etc.): but a sort of seeing that countless impoverished and homeless Americans would need to live in their car (they wish they had that hose now), but more astounding, they had remote key-less entry? Adjustable memory seats and steering wheel? In the late 1980’s? Talk about ahead of the times! The rest of the suckers were still cranking the windows by hand, and suffering immensely through steering columns that would never automatically adjust. Woe the primitive days of this young race!
The best part of this commercial, as it is with all American productions, be it religious, economic, or moral, is the totally fabricated measurements and values of the product, and the fabricated reality in which a product exists. Both must be manufactured, so what then is “the real deal” here that the commercial is selling us?
According to the advertisement, this is not merely a car, rather, it’s “a two-million dollar design exercise.” This almost sounds like double-speak for “how do we make this bad financial decision look more appealing to stockholders and car-buyers?” Answer: call something anything but what it is. The more removed from reality, the better, for who could ever find the basis of such nonsense? The point isn’t to think, it’s to relax, take it easy, have fun, get out your f***ing checkbook!
The advertisement goes on to state (value creation), this car is worth ten times that (the 2 million dollar design exercise) in the vaguely-specific measurement of “sheer traffic-stopping ability (STSA for short),” of which we can assume, people are stopping to make fun of you, or throw things at the ugly car and your zany wine-drunk aunt who is blissed out on ambien in the passenger seat. As to what “sheer traffic-stopping ability,” especially when multiplied by factors of ten, truly is to anyone, is left up fully in the imagination of the consumer, the seduced, the buyer you’ve been buttering up. These nonsensical projection screens can mean anything, the point is, it is the honey and trap in which the viewer, the consumer, the target, is invited in, to stay forever (buyer, product sold, check). As advertisers, you are the spiders, the world is your garden, and the people are your flies - what webs can you spin? If the reader finds this metaphor distasteful, then how about, “You’re advertisers - you’re Sauron and this is your Mordor! How do you break the people of the world upon your Will? How do you bend them to your desire and need?”
Let’s fungineer some math: F=Ma
No wonder this car never made it to production! It was a safety disaster. At a value of “2 million dollars design exercise” x 10 = at 20 million dollars, this is simply too much sheer traffic stopping power as to be safe for American roads.
In the world of “make believe,” we call this “selling sizzle since the steak is lacking, or altogether absent,” or, “using one’s imagination is fun.” All predators become so by being able get into the minds of their prey. The advertiser is no different, so point of differentiation, or, completely making things up, is crucial. The fact is, when all products and services are largely the same, and all transactions therein are facilitated by the same handful of banks and corporations that own the world, the people, and its revenue channels, then there will almost never be an real point of differentiation in any of these mass-marketed, mass-produced products for mass audiences, and the only thing that makes anything stand out, be it another obnoxious social media personality, another trashy celebrity, another stupid and unnecessary service, or another goofy wine-drunk aunt-designed car, is then “how stupid, absurd, and attention grabbing is your commercial.” Or, how can you really smash through your victim’s already-advertisement-addled brain? Generally violently, and with more nonsense, but we’ll save this discussion for a later date see the article here: ADVERTISING - THE WAR AGAINST THE CONSUMER.
The unreality of the commercial mirrors the vanity of those concerned, perfectly. This is also where corporate music television, or MTV as the kids knew it, taught advertising how to make every advertisement into the sexiest, loudest, most debauched experience ever, no bar too low, no stupidity or vulgarity too uncouth, no fantasy too stupid as to not assault the consumer base with it. Or, “there’s no shit you can throw to the dogs that someone won’t eat.” But state and corporation alike have long mistaken a “lack of consent” of the advertised-to and projected upon (by those doing the projecting) as being synonymous with “consumers choose brand X.” Nope. Cosby consent, or manufactured consent, or corporate American consent, or “no consent” is not the same as “choice,” or even “choosing the best of bad options.” People also never know what isn’t offered, and if industry had its way, it would keep us in the stupid ages forever. No need to ever change, or advance, or do anything different, when everything is already known and established: the need of censorship, dominon, control. Oh look, Madonna is showing off all her beef jerky again, wearing only pointed metal pasties, again. Yawn. Elsewhere, Tom Green humps a dead-moose, not because there are cameras on him, but just for fun. Another brick in the wall. Another sausage from the plant.
Another trick is “association” - you know, people who drink X brand cola are known to be cool, popular, zany, insert identify signs and signifiers here. Not only is the Stinger sporty, but you’ll find no compromise in its quality either. Why should one choose between sport or luxury? The commercial’s advertiser tells you, there’s room for sleeping bags, the Stinger is almost as much a condo, as a car. Do you know the kind of people who have condos? They’re the kind of people who have enough money to be conisdered respectably middle class Americans, and at least 4/5th to 5/5th fully human.
Here we have another commercial for the Pontiac Stinger: which begins with a theme song, undifferentiated from the sort of muzack that makes up a sitcom introduction: “The edge, the excitement’s edge, Pontiac will take you theeeeeere-.” The edge? I’ve heard that’s where IT, is happening, and IT is COOL. No way! Insert sitcom family name here, and it sounds the same: “The edge, the excitement edge, the Smiths will take you there!” (where everybody knows your name, and they’re at the edge of their seats that you came) - the sort of encouraging and exciting message a culture wants to believe, or at least sell, to itself and the rest of the world - the comforts and excitement of “identity” as is associated with values, which in an un-human, post-consumer society at its unprecedented nadir of sociability and desirable future prospects, simply means models and series - ways for a nihilistic consumer culture to differentiate the ranks and pay-grades of its disposable drones.
While we enjoy the sizzling and fizzling of our invisible steak, let’s see the rest of the bullshit used to sauce this sucker. GM isn’t selling you a regular car with a regular engine, this is “a true champion…tuned to a higher order of driving.” We’re approaching the summit of Mt. Olympus on hot air alone here. OVER-exaggeration, which is already going over the exaggeration, which was going over to begin with, much? 16 valves? True champion? Higher Order? That’s a 4-cylinder, my dude. I’m sure it’s zippy with that turbo, and even fun to drive, especially with so much STSA, but we are long gone from the days of teenage boys being excited about the garish sort of little 4-bangers one sees in movies for college-drop-outs and the brain-damaged, such as in The Fast and the Furious franchise. Street takeovers are regular occurrences, people kill each other over sneakers, and Kids outrun cops on motorcycles on social media, for memes, for lols, because they can. No advertiser can ever elevate the banal reality they seek to overcome, but they’re professionals when it comes to creating the illusion '“as if,” which for humanity, has always been enough (nihilistically so, but enough nonetheless). In short, no one wants to see your lame-ass Saturn, even with its 18 inch spokes. 250HP? Great, someone call NASCAR. We have a new contender.
Lastly, in all advertising, is pretending you invented the thing you’re doing and selling, even though you’re a hack doing the exact same thing as everybody else. Now the magic is not the product, but pretending its different, at all. If you’re fortunate, it has a recognizable and differentiated mask, but taking credit for things that aren’t things, or, inventing nonsense, is the ultimate in bullshittery. This is subtle, but more obvious. In the GM commercial, Pontiac tells us: “THIS CAR TURNS ORDINARY DRIVING…INTO AN EXPERIENCE…”
Strip it down of the writers who were paid too much for this work, insofar as they were paid anything at all, and what we have is this: Pontiac pretends they invented driving in a car. Amazing! Wow! Did you know 18 out of 25 made-up consumers finds the Pontiac Stinger supercalifragilisticexpiloadoceous?! We didn’t either, that’s why we made it up, to use as leverage, to sell to you. Come enjoin in our simulation - let yourself wander; give yourself permission; eat, pray love, and other generic comforting advertising sentiments that make great hack book titles.
And that, my friends, is how, as the advertisement says, Pontiac “brought civilization to the great outdoors.” Great, more white male power fantasies - and the Pontiac conquered the natives, civilized these savages who would otherwise die without GM to take care of them, and he took Pocahontas as his bride. No, civilization is the simulation to escape the horrible reality of “the great outdoors.” Those who refer to and think of nature as something separate, generally hate and fear it - the wild unknown - including people. The civilized have done their best to get the hell away from, and “stay out of” nature. My point? More nonsense. They can and do say anything in the same overly-excited yet constrained, infomercially-mezmerizing nap-time announcer voice: GM, Pontiac, blop, slop, zipp, zopp, doobity bop, how about some time for a jello pudding pop! - and it would work perfect for America. There’s nothing too bad, and nothing that’s not-good enough! Anything that can be Cosbyd into and onto America, should be, will be. Have another pudding pop. And another after that.
ZM
4/3/25