According to the people our enlightened society has put in charge of this type of thing, most of whom work in advertising agencies, the holiday season is upon us. I hope you all like commercials where absurdly wealthy white people surprise each other with gifts you can’t afford, because you are getting a steady diet of them for the next six weeks. Hey look, that guy got his wife diamonds! And she bought him a luxury automobile, because apparently they have so much money in their bank account that he didn’t even notice when she cut a four-or-five figure check to cover the down payment! Happy Holidays! You’re poor!
One of the few seasonal ad campaigns that doesn’t play directly into this poverty-related guilt is Infiniti’s “Snowball” set of commercials. There are a handful of them that have been around for a couple of years now, all featuring the snow-related hijinks of a guy who lives in an Aspen-like mountain community, and every time they come on I stare at my TV in disbelief over the fact that Infiniti based their whole holiday ad campaign around a total psychopath. It’s not even in dispute. He is a menace. To illustrate this point, I have posted the two most egregious examples below. I recommend watching them and then promptly RUNNING FOR YOUR LIVES if you ever see him on the street.
Here is the plot of this commercial, boiled down to its most basic elements: Some kids throw a couple snowballs at some dude, so he launches their family’s car off the side of a mountain. Think about that for a minute. His reaction to a playful childish act is to calmly pack a snowball, line it up just right, roll it down the mountain and through their scenic town with no regard for the potential risk of collateral damage, and destroy someone’s car so he can take their parking spot. That is not an acceptable response. That is a FELONY. I mean, I know dumb wiener kids hucking snowballs at you is infuriating as hell, but the appropriate response is something more along the lines of yelling obscenities at them or “accidentally” running over their skateboards with your car (you know, like an adult), not putting who knows how many lives in danger with your insane, Grinch-like, supervillain-who-lives-on-top-of-a-mountain shenanigans.
This second commercial seems better at first, mostly due to the lack of extensive retaliatory property damage, but upon closer examination it may actually be even better proof that this guy is a dangerous psychopath.
“But he just wants to create a snowy Winter Wonderland,” you say.
EXACTLY. This lunatic is taking the same risks as he did in the previous commercial — 1) Potentially squashing an innocent hiker who happened to be in the way of his runaway snowball, and 2) Missing his intended target by a few feet and sending a giant frozen murder ball into one of the town’s storefronts — and for what? Because he wants it to flurry for a few seconds? Oh okay, that seems reasonable, except that THERE IS ALREADY SNOW ON THE GROUND. AND YOU LIVE ON A SNOWCAPPED MOUNTAIN. JUST WAIT, LIKE, AN HOUR FOR IT TO SNOW AGAIN. THERE IS NO NEED FOR THIS RECKLESS ACT. At least in the first commercial he had a reason to do it. Sure, it was an insane reason, but still, there was a direct cause and effect. Don’t want your car destroyed by a maniac? Don’t whip snowballs at people. Simple. But the whole concept of some deranged person waking up and almost killing dozens of people just because he wanted to make the town pretty? That is TERRIFYING.
No one is safe until this guy is behind bars.
