The New "KY Intense" Commercial and Why It Makes It Feel More Like Rome Declining Than Ever

[Rich Engle]

I'm sure at least some of you have watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylkW08z2MN4

OK, let's try to break this thing down a little.

First off, you have this vague, andro-clone (Asian?) couple in their perfect bedroom. They are speaking deadpan, bored-sounding, they have done everything they can do to each other, in between their uber-stressful, high profile jobs. There is an underpinning of thinly-veiled contempt, but they are still hanging in there. After all, you've never really been married until you have shared a checkbook.

I'm not sure which one is the power bottom, but let's just say the whole engine lost its compression sometime ago.

Cutting to the chase (this involves money, editing, etc.), they (or really she does) that now they got this KY Intense Gel, and it feels like (jump cut, I will refrain from description, other than saying it involves taking an exercise to the obvious).

I guess it warmed her up and did stuff to her maidenhead, but not like all the other warming up stuff. Who knows? Somehow, this chemical has eclipsed years of men practicing their specific digital proficiencies. But, that represents a value proposition to both of them because now she has fireworks in her head (or had, supposedly), and, if it didn't cut down the whole mission time, surely added value, at least for her.

I propose they launch a companion product for him, soon. This way, no one will have to rely on anyone.

And that's pretty much it.

They are spending a lot on this thing, and oh, they are so racey! I feel so dirty!

This means demographical research was fairly intense.

Meaning, this is the target audience: the bored, jaded, erotically-frustrated materialist. It is to assume that this miserable state, portrayed by these two, is de-rigeur.

So, I think that means it has to do with sensitizing the desensitized. That's never good.

rde

It's either a whiff of the Orwellian nightmare, or too-late predictive programming.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Rich Engle

[syrakusos]

I'm sure at least some of you have watched this:

It's either a whiff of the Orwellian nightmare, or too-late predictive programming.

I had no idea, Rich, but thanks. It was interesting. Right now I am in my office and my wife is in hers and we are both online, so I will send her the link and listen for the response.

Short of that, perhaps you see this as some kind of "Oswald Spengler Moment." No longer young vibrant and innovative, our society has settled in to aesthetics and hedonism. Perhaps so, but if so, this was a short ride because I see it as beginning with the 1920s, actually. I recently read Death of a Salesman. Set in the 1920s, it was written to be "modern" in 1949, when it was first produced and of course it still rings "modern" today.

I am not sure that the play would have been understood in 1849 or even 1909. For one thing, the Loman family's lack of financial success is blamed at least in part in their immediate consumption of luxuries (buying the washer, etc., on credit). Perhaps the specifics would not matter in an artistic sense -- any harebrained scheme would do -- but Biff and Happy want to open an exhibition basketball league in Florida. That's not exactly the lightbulb or the fly ball governor. Their enterprise has no material purpose.

Again, all of that is from 50 years ago and was set in the previous generation. So, if Hot Lubricant is the Twilight of the West, then it was a short day.

[Rich Engle]

You're on it, Michael, as to my POV.

But, I only wish it were comparable to the times you reference.

This is a numb-er thing, more jaded.

They finally brought sex down to gel. Swell.

rde

Wow, he can rhyme by accident, too!

Edited April 19, 2009 by Rich Engle