"Dear Advertising, from Science" (No. 6)

One for the weekend. "When will it end?!?", I hear you shout. As soon as people stop reading it, I reply.

"Dear Advertising

I'm writing to you on the advice of my lawyers (I have about three). Please pass this message on to Marketing too, as almost all of this applies to him too. To be completely truthful, it wouldn't surprise me if you guys were the same person. I would say "I've never seen the two of you together" to support my argument, but seeing as you're both abstract concepts that's not surprising. But then so am I, so I can write to you and you'd better bloody read it or I'll come and find you.

Rest assured, I'll work out how, what with being Science and all.

Stop mentioning me in your work! Seriously, cut that crap out. We don't work together, I don't endorse you, if anything I wish you'd just piss off and die in a ditch, or some other filth-filled location, I'm not fussy. You make the money for all of Businesses evil henchmen, and they tempt my lot to go work with them on projects which are utterly meaningless. and generally detrimental to society. So to then claim I'm endorsing or somehow involved in the crap your flogging is just like a massive kick in the nether regions. Using my own leg. That you ripped off without asking.

I'll make this even simpler; I don't like you! I have to spend countless hours (on a shoestring budget) explaining to people the fundamental discoveries I've made, and they barely listen. You, however, get millions to spend and all the media exposure you want, and look what you do with it! And what's worse, it ends up making my lot look stupid!

Just to clarify, here's a brief list of things that, despite your claims, scientists don't spend any time researching;

• "What brand of cat-food cats prefer", especially when given a choice of '2'. A non-reasoning animal making an arbitrary choice between 2 options does not provide useful information. No, not even if it was a double blind. Anyway, aren't cats arrogant enough without extensive study into what particular type of reconstituted offal they will deign to consume? This is not a valid use of research funding.
• The design of the toothbrush is pretty much fixed now. A tweak here or there is fine, but one of us could do that on a Sunday morning while waiting for the centrifuge cycle to finish. It's not a series of monumental breakthroughs, as you seem to imply. And electric toothbrushes aren't much better. If you're the sort of person who can't be bothered to move your arm for a minute when cleaning your own teeth then they're screwed anyway, might as well glue a brush to a sex toy and call it good. And don't try the whole '4 out of 5 dentists recommend...' approach either. Dentists are overworked individuals who have to spend all their working lives fiddling about in the mouths of people who probably don't brush; they'd recommend daily bleach gargling if it made their lives easier.
• On a similar note, there aren't armies of scientists and technicians working on the next big development in disposable razor blade technology. It's a simple system, just add 1 more blade to the existing number then triple the price. Then wait until every posing vain idiot has bought one, then claim that, actually, 'the best number of blades on a razor is one more than we thought'. Repeat until disposable blades are bigger than the human face, then say 'oh no, wait, just the one blade is better'. Cycle repeats.
  

Just a few examples there of things I'm not involved with in any great way. But you also need to stop criticising the stuff I am involved with.

I've spent decades working with the food industry to make food more commercially viable, better tasting and long lasting, and then you imply that I'm basically pissing in it? Oh no, now you go and really emphasise 'natural' ingredients. Like what? Arsenic? Sulphur? Magma? Mmm, natural! And everything is natural at some point, before it undergoes processing, as I've not yet cracked the process of creating fresh matter from sunbeams or happy thoughts. Have you? I notice you never stipulate how 'natural' something is in relative terms, which isn't even slightly suspicious, of course.

I genuinely saw a bag of crisps the other day which boasted the claim 'Made of REAL ingredients'. I was reassured, those holographic crisps are never as good, and it's nice to have the possibility that we are all part of the Matrix ruled out by a fried potato snack.

And another thing, stop using my words when you clearly have no idea what they mean! 'High in polyunsaturates'? 'Contains Omega 3'? 'Rich in antioxidants'? You don't have a clue, do you? Why are these good things? Are they, in fact, good things? The phrase 'if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all' has never been one that I've adhered to, so I use my own.

"If you don't have any idea what you're saying, shut your stupid face!"

It's potentially dangerous, too. How many things do you say 'help boost the immune system'? 'Boost'? That must be a good thing, of course. What harm could an artificially increased immune system do? Tell me, are you familiar with the term Anaphylactic shock? I doubt it. But if I'm wrong, and you have discovered a manner to quickly and easily improve someones immune system, could you at least do the decent thing and let me know how? I have some AIDS sufferers who'd love to hear about it, and it would save a lot of time looking for bone marrow.

Speaking of discoveries, isn't it illegal to claim to have discovered something when you haven't? Case in point, that Oil of Olay crap where the secret ingredient is pentapeptides? A string of 5 amino-acids? If this is such an incredible achievement, can you point me in the direction of an organic compound that doesn't have any pentapeptides? Take your time. What does the next miracle cream contain? Revolutionary new 'atoms'? Ooh, wizz-bang!

But seriously, stop it. Stop telling people we're in agreement, stop using my words to confuse them and stop telling them that my work is bad for them.

There is some science to advertising, admittedly. You know how almost every system or process can be boiled down to a series of equations? Here's the equation for advertising.

N = n+1

N = Necessary number of things/services for an individual
n = Number they already posses.

There. That's it. All of advertising rests on this equation. Everyone needs one more of something, be it shoes, computers or level of whiteness provided by a washing powder.Of course, if they obtain one more of whatever it is, N become n. And so it goes on.

If this equation stops, you will cease to exist. I'm working with Maths to try and figure out how to make that happen.

Love and kisses

Science (BA hons)

P.S. That equation also seems to calculate the required number of films about 'Shrek', but I think this is a coincidence

email: humourology (at) live.co.uk
Twitter: @garwboy


N.B. After writing this, was reminded of several instances where advertising has been used as a force for good, such as the Atheist Bus Campaign. I really should have titled it a letter to 'advertising which incorrectly uses science for comemrcial gain', but that would have been quite unwieldy

Disordered eating

Pregnancy, nuts and asthma

The guy who wrote the story above must have had a confusing time of it. Three health hot topics, Nut allergies, the effects of mothers diet on the foetus, and childhood asthma. Although admittedly, Asthma seems to have something of an 80's feel these days, it's a bit simplistic in these days of ADHD and MMR-Autism hysteria. It's a well understood disease that affects the lungs, and lungs are boring, right? Everyone knows about them, mental disorders are where it's at in the new millennium. I imagine a modern mother would be embarrassed if her child had asthma, sneaking them out of the playground after school, as all the other trendy mums laugh and scoff at her offspring with the outdated illness, as their own children stare into space in a Ritailin induced semi-coma.
(Ritailin is the most commonly perscribed drug for treating ADHD, it curbs the main symptoms such as lack of attention and impulsivity, and if you up the dose it can even get rid of some of those annoying habits children have like curiosity, playfulness and free will, and it can't do any harm surely as it's all medicine, medicine is good for you, right? And you can leave the child staring at the wall while you go off and get your nails done and do some shopping, and all those other things you can do now that you don't have to waste all that time doing actual parenting!)
You may have guessed, I'm not a big fan of medicating children with powerful stimulants, particularly as their brains are still developing. I'm sure there are plenty of occasions when it has to be done, but it's surely a last resort, not a first one, and I can't abide it when a parent says 'my child is out of control' when they actually mean 'my child has an illness that cramps my lifestyle, can't we tranquilize him or something?' You people know who you are!
Where was I?
Ah, right. Asthma, nut allergies and pregnancy. Three health concerns rolled into one. Apparently, if pregnant women eat nuts they risk giving their children asthma. I'm not sure how that works, but it's probably a very convoluted process. But do you remember when peanut allergies were weird? I remember hearing about it for the first time as a child, and it sounded very odd. Now they're everywhere, I know several people who suffer from serious nut allergies. Has it always been like this? Were there always many peanut sufferers who were too afraid to come forward? If so, why? Or is there an increase in allergies as time goes on.
Western living is, apparently, largely to blame. You don't get many peanut allergies in Africa, and they eat copious amounts. It's because their immune systems have more important things to do. (An allergic reaction is caused by the immune system responding rather overenthusiastically to an essentially harmless substance, by the way, in case that didn't make any sense). People in Africa have, on average, a much lower standard of living and their immune systems have to fight of germs and disease all the time. We in the west have a habit of sterilizing everything. My own mother did it, when I was born she went hygiene crazy, even sterilizing the phones, although who she expected to be calling a 2 week old baby I never established. So our immune systems get bored and twitchy, and allergies occur. Peanuts seem to be especially prone to causing a bad reaction.
I remember reading an article in New Scientist about this, where a woman died after eating peanuts at a party. Her husband said she must have eaten a peanut that "was hiding in a bowl of mixed nuts". It's a terrible tragedy and my sympathies go out to the guy, but if someone said to me 'find me a peanut', a bowl of mixed nuts would be the 2nd place I'd look. The 1st would be a bowl of peanuts. Why was she eating nuts if she had an allergy? Was this 'Russian roulette: The Christmas party edition'? Maybe she didn't know she had an allergy, but in that case, why blame the peanut? It could have been any other nut*, they were mixed. I've always been wary of Walnuts. All crumpled up like that, what are they hiding?
But this sort of story gets lost in the tide of articles and programmes about 'Food is bad for you!' There's nothing we can eat any more without some self-confessed expert lecturing us like idiot children or sifting through our bowel movements for some undisclosed reason. Jamie Oliver was practically Knighted for trying to stop kids eating 'junk', Gillian McKeith is a millionaire thanks to the nonsensical guff she spouts about nutrition, all because people are so paranoid about what they eat, and everyone seems hell bent on making it worse!
A lot of people don't trust GM food. Why? As if all other produce hasn't been cultivated and designed for maximum output over decades/centuries. But no, speed the process up in a lab and you can't trust it. 'Organic only' sections in Supermarkets annoy me, if they're going to have those, they should have 'GM only' as well. Discriminating against something because of its genes is otherwise known as racism, and I want no part of it!
There seems to be some sort of bandwagon, and everyone wants to jump on. Apparently, Janet Street Porter has recently been criticising smoothies and fruit drinks because of all the natural sugar they contain. never mind the vitamins and all that, it's the sugar that's important apprently. That just makes me want to consume smoothies until the stuff starts dripping from my ears, if Janet Street-porter is against it, I'm all for it. She's just massively infuriating.
But think about it. Red Meat = Very bad for your heart. Chicken = Probably Chemically enhanced, and they make Hugh cry. Fish = Heavy metal poisoning. Carrots = Possible vitamin A overdose. Citrus fruits = Too much sugar and acid damages your teeth. Other fruits = Sugar again, and don't forget pesticides and germs etc. Potatoes = too many carbs. Rice = Not enough carbs. Pasta = Too many carbs. Broccoli = High in carcinogens. Nuts = Fattening, too many oils. Mushrooms = Fungus? Eeeurgh. Sausages = Do you know what they putin that stuff? Eyes and anus and stuff! Curry = too many colourings. Smoothies = Janet say NO! Salad = Is it fresh? negative calories you know, if you eat it too often you might die. Coffee= Do you know what's in that? Tea = And that! Pizza = They spit in it you know, my mate saw them do it. Chinese food = All that MSG damages your eyes, you could go blind.
It goes on. There's literally nothing we can eat any more which doesn't maim or kill us in some way. Just be responsible, don't overindulge but don't starve to death either. Everything you do damages you in some way, that's life. For some people, a perfect world would be one where everyone just stays indoors hooked up to an IV drip and staring at the wall. If we're lucky, maybe they'll add some garlic to it, because there's nothing wrong with that. Yet.

* I am aware that a peanut is a legume. To anyone who was compelled to write to me to point that out, I'd advise you to go outside and talk to someone. Anyone, as you clearly need to.