Everything in Life is Now a Commercial

Selling out, being sold to, and the downward spiral of it all (but maybe there's some hope)

Each week, a menu of sorts, around a revolving theme. This week: the appetite for advertising and maybe, just maybe, our kids will save us. But probably not.

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Ingredient List

🎵 : Following on the heels of my Khruangbin binge from last week, I’ve fully dove into Hermanos Gutiérrez and it’s hitting my sweet spot for shoulder season listening.

📖 : Two stories in The New York Times captured my attention this week, and you can read them both via the following gift links.

The first is “Greed, Gluttony and the Crackup of Red Lobster,” which goes into all the details of why Endless Shrimp is probably a bad idea and maybe a bad idea that was used to sabotage the company from within. I appreciate the angle that the author took, because it puts a central focus on the employees who truly felt like Red Lobster was a family before a large multinational corporation came along and gutted it. Also, growing up, Red Lobster was the fanciest restaurant I could imagine, with its live lobster tank and cheddar biscuits, and it’s sad to see that disappear.

The second story is “20 Million Cards: A Sports Memorabilia Gold Mine Uncovered in Virginia,” and it almost hurts to read because it goes beyond the wildest childhood dreams of any child growing up in the eighties and nineties. I still remember the literal dream I had of walking into an old attic and finding Mickey Mantle rookie cards and Honus Wagner tobacco cards (among many others); it is still the best sleeping dream I’ve ever had in my life. Except, it basically happened to this guy, who somehow secured the biggest haul of memorabilia known to man.

And now, onto dinner service.

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Course 1

A Word of Gratitude: Tainted Pork Burritos

Gonna start this one out by sharing one of my all-time favorite ad spots. I’m pretty sure I’ve referenced this ad before, but it’s one of the few television commercials I’ll go back and watch every few months. It’s not as good as the Volkswagen Nick Drake ad (which I wrote about in my first ever Substack post ), but it’s pretty close.

It’s also the perfect use The Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done,” which just happens to be in my repertoire of go-to karaoke songs. And yes, unfortunately half the athletes in this video turned out to be dopers or murderers, but who among us has not sinned?

There was a time when Nike advertising meant something. I grew up during that time.

And for that, I am grateful.

Course 2

Appetizer: Dodger Dogs

As someone who works in a field that not only acts as a mouthpiece for brands (shoe and gear reviews), but whose salary is paid for by advertising revenue, I am constantly thinking about ways that money is made through advertising, sponsorships, and partnerships. 

While I think that our service is beneficial and even does good by helping runners choose the right shoe that will help them love running more, I still understand how we’re a cog in the wheel of American commercialism. So I get that, to some degree, I’m a part of the problem. But the problem is getting worse and we’re just getting started.

Take for instance, the U.S. Open, one of the Grand Slam events of the tennis world, an event that draws elites looking elite in their best polos and their unblemished white dresses. It’s a place to see and be seen, especially if you find yourself on camera every couple minutes. I’m not talking about the players. In this case, it’s the coaches and family members in the players’ boxes, that oft-shown courtside area that is commonly shown on television during post-point reactions and analysis. 

Attendees in the player boxes sometimes wear hats, hopefully they’re wearing shirts, and traditionally, they’re left unbranded. A blank canvas just waiting for the stroke of a master, or in this case– a micro sponsor. And in a sport with a notoriously small pool of paid professionals, all of these empty storefronts are open for business. A logoless shirt is the perfect opportunity to blend the shamelessness of NASCAR with the classiness of Arthur Ashe Stadium. 

If you’re not a fan of tennis, then you may not have seen the wackiness on the hats and chests of coaches and families and the sleeves of low-ranking players themselves. Ads from everything from energy drinks to batteries to– no joke– Benjamin Crump, attorney for the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. All of this is within the rules of the event (though quite the thorn in the side of title sponsors). It’s not the first time it’s happened, but the limits are being tested and every inch of space is being explored. It’s even trickled down to the players’ girlfriends– brands know that they’ll post a photo together on Instagram or be shown on television screens together after the event, so sponsoring the spouse is another avenue for revenue.

None of this is surprising if you’ve been to a baseball game these days– the entire stadium, once a verdant green field of dreams, is now just a ticker tape print parade of carnival barkers, everything from your local pressure washing business to investment banking. Dodger dog sales ain’t paying that $700 million Ohtani deal. While you wait for the game to start, you’ll probably find yourself scrolling Instagram, the modern day, slot-machine version of QVC. If you’re not getting a sponsored ad for a product every fifth photo or reel, then you’re getting sold something from your favorite influencer. 

Instagram is a notoriously difficult place to make money, because unlike a website or YouTube, creators don’t see a share of the advertising that Instagram takes in. Instead, they have to be the actual ad by mixing it in with their own content or by simply shamelessly promoting it, which isn’t recommended because it’s not authentic and authenticity is how you separate yourself and survive on the platform. And because of the ubiquitousness of the app and the desire of every kid with a phone to be an influencer, the competition is stiff. Everyone is scrambling for the pot of gold that gets smaller and smaller with more and more creators.

Because that pot is getting smaller, Instagram-only creators are forced to a) take on more clients, b) be less discerning with those clients and as a byproduct– less authentic, and c) work way harder in order to bring in a reliable income. This is a tricky balance and it takes a certain dexterity to juggle all those things. Few creators are actually good at doing this, and they’re all trying to just manage it while hoping and praying they can break that glass ceiling of a few hundred thousand followers where the bigger deals start flowing in. There is a tipping point and it is achievable, but it’s not easy. Most creators exist in the scrum– the piranha pool of toothy creatures just hoping to evolve into a great white shark.

The other problem is that everyone thinks they’re worth something, that they can be that fertile ground that advertisers are looking for. Some rely on the “jackpot method,” which is to go viral and then ride that wave to lifelong fame. Anyone with a brief blip of exposure will try to cash in, as seen by both the Hawk Tuah girl (real name Hailey Welch) and Jools Lebron, the creator of the “very demure, very mindful” trend. In the case of the former, she’s been exploring the gamut of media extensions to keep her profile from fading, from podcasts to reality shows to merch deals. Meanwhile, much like family members coming out of the woodwork after a lottery win, the guys on the street who videotaped her for their channel are attempting to sue for ownership to the Hawk Tuah name. Just a bunch of pigs playing in mud, fumbling for scraps. 

In the case of Jools Lebron, the attempt to trademark the phrase “very demure, very mindful” makes sense, but I hope they keep the merch numbers low because by the end of the year (probably sooner), its moment will be gone. Another phrase or trend will came along and replace it, which is the nature of TikTok and Instagram– it’s all an advertising grind of elevating one person and spitting them out, creating a trend and then memory-holing it with a new one, over and over again. 

All of this comes down to the insatiable desire to capitalize on the gold rush of the moment, to make the most money while we can. It’s a top-to-bottom ordeal, from the lowly creators to the boardroom bros in a venture capital firm. All just selling things, so many things, to make the most money. The worst part about it is that there’s room for so much more. Look at a blank space, anywhere– all of that is space for advertising, especially when we explore the possibilities of augmented and virtual realities. The true landslide of advertising has yet to even begin.

Meanwhile, the end user is getting served an unending carousel of ads and less authenticity overall. What was built by true creators has now been usurped by the chase for ad dollars. While the platforms themselves max out their monetary value thanks to user engagement, the intrinsic value as a good product goes down inversely.

Instagram in particular is on a treadmill that’s churning money, but the legs are getting tired, we’re all getting tired, and it’s wearing down faster than anyone thinks. Like good products in the golden age of technology, its intentions were once good, but its demise will be accelerated by its greed and its dumbing down of all things, and I predict its death is coming sooner than we all think.

Instagram began as the modern day version of the Kodak carousel (captured beautifully in the infamous Mad Men scene below). At one time, it was a repository for our favorite photos, our memories, a place that if we scroll back long enough, we can feel something again from a certain place in time.

Those days are long gone, of course. Like Kodak, Instagram assumes it can get away with too much for too long. Beholden to investors, it will push the limits as far as it can go in the world of advertising. Ads at every turn, commercials from every mouth, nobody you can trust. The gaps in between the ads filled in with mindless dopamine snaps that keep us around just long enough to see another ad. The creators will go along with it, because they’re bound to the algorithm and the business model and are caught somewhere between just making rent and just getting rich. 

It’ll work for awhile, but sooner or later, the weight of it all will capsize the vessel. And the rats will go down with the ship. I’ll see you in the water.

Course 3

The Main: Homemade Sausage Egg McMuffin

Two weeks ago, my kids and I watched Blank Check, the ‘90s Disney movie about a kid who is literally handed a blank check, deposits it for $1 million, then lives out every millennial kids’ dreams by blowing the entire surplus over the course of three days.

There were mansions and waterslides and VR headsets and limos and a hot federal agent telling an 11-year-old she’d hook up with him when he was 17, which for some reason the producers thought was a key part of the plot and just had to stay in. I mean, she actually kisses the kid on the lips, for real. In short, the whole movie was the best outcome of a MASH game come to life: mansions, limos, and Cindy Crawford. Close enough, anyway.

This movie also came out in the same year as Richie Rich (1994), another film about having a ton of money and a McDonald’s in your own house, another wild fantasy of any kid at the time. If I’m being honest, it still is. You know you’ve made it when you can wake up every morning to a woman named Rhonda firing up some hashbrowns on the flattop grill while working away on a sausage egg McMuffin in the microwave.

The difference between the movies is that Richie Rich is inherited wealth, while Blank Check is found wealth. One was essentially a kid version of Trump (Barack Obama even referenced this movie at one point as a dig at the Donald), and one was literally every other kid in America. Nevertheless, money was on the mind at the time. How can you get it and what can you do with it seemed to be the singular focus. Riding on the coattails of eighties-era decadence, commercialism was in full swing. That hasn’t changed much– in fact, it’s probably gotten worse– but unlike today, when brands are “ethical” or “sustainable” or “responsible,” and attempt to wrap their marketing in a veneer of values, the early nineties were just: “Hey, buy this shit.” 

So much so, that it was even parodied in other movies of the era, most notably Wayne’s World, which dedicates an entire segment to a meta-analysis of overt product placement in film. I still don’t even know what the product is actually used for, but I will never get Nuprin out of my head. Little. Yellow. Different. Pepsi: the choice of a new generation.

But is all of this commercialism the choice of this generation?

When we finished watching Blank Check, I asked my kids what they would do if they had a million dollars. My oldest, who is 8, should know how he wants to spend his money. I know I did when I was his age. Rye’s response: “I’d just buy some Pokémon cards and give the rest away.” 

Dude, come on. I offered up other ideas– what about baseball tickets or Disney World or a go-kart track? Not interested. Now, in the moment, he may have just said the only thing that came to his mind, and didn’t think beyond that. Fair enough. But this doesn’t just happen in hypothetical questioning. It even trickles down to birthdays and Christmases– neither of my kids can ever give me a list of what they want, not even a single item outside of a newly released Dogman book. It’s reached the point of annoyance for me. As a nineties kid, this general malaise towards an abundance of wealth and the opportunity to blow it like a scratch-off lottery addict is almost concerning.

Before you start thinking, “We get it dude, your kids are great, they’re not materialistic, stop doing that understated braggy thing,” I need you to know that none of this is intentional. We’ve never discouraged them from asking or wanting toys or games or anything else. And yes, while we don’t indiscriminately accumulate toys for quick dopamine hits and have hammered home that buying things doesn’t equate to happiness, most of that is because we live in an 1,100 square foot row home in Baltimore and are in a constant pursuit of the Marie Kondo mindset. We simply can’t have more stuff.

Part of this lack of want is because of our own lack of want in our family. What do we need that the forest cannot provide? We have a roof over our head and bills that are paid. They have bikes and balls of every kind to play with. We eat as we please and go out once a week. We have a fantastic library just a few blocks away. We have cars that run and have the means to travel to places we want to see. 

The physical setting of my kids’ childhood is actually very similar to my own, as I grew up with one working parent and three siblings in a small brick ranch house. But I can’t get over the difference in our mindsets. When I was Rye’s age, my singular focus was to accumulate more wealth by any means necessary so I could buy things that my parents could not afford. Upper Deck baseball cards, a Gameboy, a Starter jacket. The annual Sears’ Christmas Wish Book was an encyclopedia of all my hopes and dreams. I can literally still feel the hurt of wanting Nickelodeon Moon Shoes as I meditated on the product page and imagined myself bouncing all over my backyard.

After my kids’ response to Richie Rich and their general lack of desire towards physical playthings, I wanted to nail down the root of it. Why don’t they want more things? And the only reason I can come up with is this: They just aren’t being sold stuff.

Growing up, any kid-oriented programming was just a massive dump truck load of commercialism interspersed with an actual show. The commercial breaks between Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers were high-octane, in-your-face advertisements that somehow managed to cram in a hook, line, and sinker into a 15-second spot, pulling in every kid’s deepest desires in the process. In that time frame, commercial directors could turn a ball of slime from a thing you never knew about into the most-beggable object in the universe. You were convinced that you could take out the militaries of small countries with the newest caliber of a Super Soaker. It was really quite something.

There was no way around getting sold to, of course. Every channel had commercial programming and every program had the same time slots for ad breaks, so you just had to watch them. All eyes on me, said Polly Pocket and friends. Over and over again, every ten minutes, for an entire Saturday morning. The seeds were planted and the begging began. The begging begat buying, the buying brought clout, and soon, every kid in America wanted what the other kids had. It didn’t matter how dumb the product was, it only mattered that it was marketed and sold. 

Which is why the real value in streaming packages today isn’t the on-demand access of movies and shows: it’s the lack of advertising. For the most part, streaming packages today have eliminated this entire headache from our lives. The monthly cost of Disney+ or Netflix has paid for itself ten times over by removing the pervasiveness of commercials. These are the only two things we watch, and even then, it’s pretty sparse, maybe four hours a week. Because of that, my kids just have no clue what’s out there. Print catalogs are completely extinct and because our kids don’t have tablets or phones, they’ve never scrolled social media or watched toy unboxings on YouTube. They’ve just never been exposed to commercial advertising. The most craveable item they’ve been exposed to is a MrBeast chocolate bar, and honestly– they’re not too bad, so I don’t even mind.

It’s swung so far the other way that on the rare occurrence that we watch a Ravens game on a Sunday, they love the commercial breaks, the exact opposite of how I felt as a kid. It’s pretty amazing to think that In an era where advertising and commercialism is absolutely pervasive, they’re just not exposed to any of it, because it’s all online. 

I’m not even sure if this is a good thing. In some ways, I want them to want things. I’m trying to teach them the value of making money and saving money (and giving it too), but it’s hard to motivate a kid to work towards an end goal when they can’t even conceive of one.  

Right now, both my kids are saving up to buy a Nintendo Switch. I think. They only bring it up when they encounter it at another kid’s house and feel left out because they don’t know how to get Mario’s kart to the finish line before everyone else. Which I get. But then a day goes by and I don’t hear about it again for another month. But they’re not really operating with twin turbine engines in the money-making department. They do their chores and money comes in, but there’s no counting quarters every day, the way it was when I was their age.

It’s taking so long that I’m debating about just buying a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. After publishing this, it’ll probably show up in all my Instagram ads, over and over again, until I finally relent. 

After all, I’m still just a greedy nineties kid waiting to find a blank check and blow it on the shiniest object I can find.

Course 4

Dessert: A Repast of the Past Week

This was my biggest week of running in almost the whole year, around 50 miles. Not outstanding by most marathon training measures, but good enough for me. Today’s 19-mile run was a bit rough around the edges. Basically, I’m tired of running and ready to get to Berlin.

In other news, I’m trying to get a Baltimore bike bus off the ground (basically a large kids group ride to school), and Friday was our inaugural ride. A neighbor of mine and his daughter joined us, we then met up with another family and rode our way to school. Passerby were loving our little party, complete with speakers blasting music and kids and parents riding together. Stoked to build on it and see how big we can get this thing.

Speaking of landing a limo in the game of MASH, here’s a good one I saw on my run today (still trying to figure out what’s going on with the hubcaps):

I also contribute to The Drop, a weekly email from Believe in the Run, where I round up running news and stories in a generally sarcastic (and sometimes heartfelt) manner. You can subscribe here.

I’m also the co-host of The Drop running podcast, one of the top running podcasts in the country, where we mostly talk about things other than running that thousands of people seem to find entertaining. You can listen to this past week’s episode here.

Postcards for Paids

I’ve been creating and sending postcards to my paid subscribers, made from vintage postcards with custom artwork courtesy of the weed packaging I find on the ground in Baltimore. Got a handful more sent out last week, and if you haven’t received one, don’t worry, I promise I’m working on it! Good weed packaging has been hard to come by lately. On the back, a handwritten thank you note, of course. Here’s one from the last batch I sent (thanks Bryant!):

END OF MENU

Thank you for dining with me this evening, I hope the service was acceptable. Tips (whether monetary or recommendations to others) are appreciated, but not expected.

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