Shy Bladder Group Protests Rob Lowe’s Latest DirecTV Ad (Not An Onion Headline)

Angry moms protesting Breaking Bad action figures and Kardashian clothing in Toys ‘r Us and the Parents Television Council getting up in arms about a president going down on Olivia Pope after a Charlie Brown cartoon are at least within the realm of protests we might expect, right? But this?

This was unexpected.

You may have seen the one of the latest in a series of Rob Lowe’s “Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe” ads for DirectTV, in which a handsome and put together Rob Lowe who has DirecTV compares himself to the painfully awkward Rob Lowe, who only has cable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGeJV7_0Wsg

In the ad, “painfully awkward Rob Lowe” admits that he can’t urinate with other people in the room. It’s funny because it’s Rob Lowe.

The International Paruresis Association, WHICH IS A REAL ORGANIZATION THAT EXISTS, did not think it was funny.

From Page Six:

The ad is in poor taste and ridicules a serious problem, said Steve Soifer, CEO of the International Paruresis Association, which estimates that some 7 percent of Americans have some form of “shy bladder syndrome.”

“We don’t mind if people have a little fun with it,” said Soifer, a social work professor at the University of Memphis. “It’s a situation that a lot of people don’t understand. In this particular case, the portrayal is making it look ridiculous, that this guy is a loser for having a problem.

“What if he didn’t have a leg or an arm?” he said. “Are you going to make fun of them?”

If he didn’t have an arm or a leg, OF COURSE we wouldn’t make fun of him, unless he also had a shy bladder.

People, the protest are officially out of hand.

Source: Page Six