You're selling what?

Commercials are scaring me lately. The commercials themselves aren’t frightening but what they are saying about people and what we’re willing to do to ourselves, or sacrifice for the sake of convenience, is.

Take, for example, the commercials for Latisse, the first FDA-approved drug designed to – get this – help you grow longer, thicker lashes. Let me say that again, in case you didn’t hear it the first time: the sole purpose of this drug is to help people – the marketing is targeted to women – grow longer, thicker lashes. This means that the drug companies believe there are people out there willing to ingest drugs into their system just to get Bambi-like lashes. I have no doubt the drug companies are right. Just when we’re starting to realize there are too many artificial ingredients in our food, when we’re finding prescription medications in the drinking water, when parents are starting to demand that the potential connection between immunizations and autism be explored, when a record number of people do not have proper healthcare, there are people seeking prescriptions so their lashes will be longer. Oh, and did I mention that one of the side effects of this drug is a potential permanent change in eye color?

Yeah. I believe this drug is safe. It can’t be doing anything harmful to the body if its worse possible side effect is changing an aspect of ourselves that’s determined by our very genes. (That’s sarcasm, by the way.)

One of the other commercials that has me pounding my head against the nearest unresisting surface are those for Bing. In case you hadn’t heard, Bing is Microsoft’s latest entry into the search engine wars. It is not, the marketing tells us, a search engine, but a decision engine. According to the commercials airing for Bing, the human race is so overwhelmed by options, they are no longer able to answer simple questions or make basic decisions. Bing is the alleged solution to all of this. When you are looking for information on the internet, it can decide what you’re really seeking for you. The mere human user doesn’t have to worry about all of those pesky choices. Just let the computer do it for you.

Isn’t that the premise of multiple science fiction movies and novels? The machines come alive, start thinking for themselves, and attempt to destroy the human race. Why does this not sound like something we should be actively pursuing to me? Why does the fact that Bing removes my ability to make my own decisions not sound like a selling point? I like making my own choices, I like learning things I didn’t know before. And on those occasions when I don’t, or can’t, figure out the best option for myself, I prefer to choose who helps me out of my quandary by going to other humans that I respect and trust and who have knowledge in the area that I’m stuck in. Far better to do that than trust a mindless, soulless machine programmed by a team of computer engineers whose primary purposes are to advance their own interests and take home a paycheck, not necessarily in that order.

It’s long past time for people to start collectively questioning what advertisers are telling them and why they’re trying to sell the products that they’re selling. If you’re really so into your appearance that you’re willing to rise permanent changes to traits that are considered identifying markers, then perhaps you should look into therapy instead of new prescription medications, because really, how full your lashes are, it’s just not that important to risk your health, or risk further pollution to the planet, for.

As for making your own decisions? There’s a saying amongst writers: Own your words. It means take responsibility for what you say and how you say it. As writers, we are expected to have greater control of how we use language. The rest of the population needs to take on the same standard of conducted. Own your actions. Make your own decisions. Choose wisely. And, if in doubt, ask questions, both of yourselves and of the people trying to sell you things.