Wednesday Morning Rant

In the history of the heavy-handed "public service announcement" (PSA), non are more insipid and self-conscious than anti-smoking PSAs (though anti-drug PSAs are a close second). Besides the elements of blatant propaganda and "how do you do, fellow kids" posturing, the anti-smoking PSAs have the added benefit of being paid for - at gunpoint - by the tobacco industry itself. What a deal.

Things being what they are in our high-tech world, the anti-smoking PSA outfit "Truth" has increasingly pivoted away from anti-smoking messaging and into anti-vaping messaging. This makes some degree of sense, as electronic cigarettes are increasingly popular for a variety of reasons from cost to odor to health (real or imagined). One thing that hasn't changed, however, is the quality - though the obliviousness has arguably gotten worse.

This is a recent ad from "Truth" that I saw as a YouTube preroll ad within the past week. It caught my attention because I actually (and unusually) watched a YouTube preroll ad. The theme of this spot is straightforward: nicotine use can increase your stress and compound your bad feelings in a stressful world. What stood out to me, however, was not the normal propaganda messaging - that's all just par for the course - but that the ad's producers are accidentally revealing something more.

If you slow it down and go through its frenetic flashes more carefully and slowly, you'll see the stressors they argue that nicotine usage will exacerbate. It's all so fast, especially after the first few seconds of the montage, that it's essentially subliminal (which is probably the point - all propaganda uses psyop techniques), but we live in a world where "pause" buttons exist, and that button is a lot like the sunglasses in "They Live."

What are those stressors? They include among others:

• Being broke
• Heavy student debt loads
• Breakups and broken relationships
• Social media obsession ("Facebook Stalking" and "clout" chasing)
• Climate change doomism
• Degrading pop culture and music
• Short-term focus

I can't imagine that they intended this. They were probably just going through focus-group results about "what do teenagers and 20-somethings care and worry about" and then running them through the art department to make another indifferent and forgettable PSA. But everything on the list is a direct result of (or at least exacerbated by) the progressive leftists of state and culture. Climate change stressing you out? Okay, as long as you don't smoke! Can't catch a break in Brandon's economy? Okay, as long as you don't smoke! Bought a bill of goods and racked up student debt? Okay, as long as you don't smoke! Your social media doom loop is bringing you down? Okay, as long as you don't smoke!

Not one of the stressors they call out is not directly a result of or exacerbated by the policies that the people of "Truth" or those like them pursue. Create the problem or worsen it, watch it snowball, then step in with propaganda about how to deal with it in state-approved ways. It's a perfect circle, really, though I don't think the producers of this ad realize it. They thought they were just making another pointless anti-smoking PSA.

Instead, they provided a clinic in the utter absence of self-awareness.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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