AD ME

I think you have fallen in love with some of them. I have. Every time someone asks me what makes me stay tuned, I will say that it is not the program but the commercials. I love A Mild ones as they amuse with critical display of what has been going on unresolved in our daily life. One version shows you all the daunting red tapes one would face when he has to obtain some permit or something, with all these officers' working efficiency is equivalent with how much money they are offered. How the product's another ad shows how we handle all this recurring flood also exposes the government as our best laughing stock.

Now let's get serious with those ads that pervert us, if I may say that way as they are corrupt and misleading and the government, again, has been the late party seeing it coming.

Those whitening lotions are the most troublesome, to me. I think they really need some restraints as they have been successfully encouraging ideas to women that the fairer skin they have got the better their life is. Displays like a woman having grim days when she still keeps that old dark skin and when she turns to be a joyful, more confident figure after she has used those whitening lotions (in seven days??!) are really sickening. You can imagine how their ideas would do even more to they young minds since their airing is not limited to certain hour slots like that of cigarettes. If some think that these FMG companies are wasting money airing their products, then somebody has to explain to us how they have paid and intensified the commercial.

Next are motorcycles or scooter ads. They have bombarded us with the idea that being fast is all that matters when it comes to riding this bebek. Well, the one with Valentino Rossi should tell us their message then. Everybody is being made oblivious how dangerous it is at the same time as motorcycle-related accidents just claim lives (or limbs) everyday. The simple truth is motorcycles have never been a safe mode of transportation. Come to any developed countries, or Japan, where Yamaha and Suzuki and Honda should roam the street more than they do here and you will not find only a very few ride. Mostly its use is so limited like, you know, you ran out of sugar and you feel like the Indomaret or Alfamart is not within your walking distance, though it is still in your neighborhood, then you use the motorcycle. It is nothing more than a motorized bicycle for doing stuff around your neighborhood and not for commuting nor long-distance travel.
The manufacturers may argue that it is the careless riding that causes all the accidents but when it comes to which is safer, of course, they must agree that the two-wheeled simply can not beat the four-wheeled. And so far, they have never included safety as an intrinsic property attached to motorcycle riding; they have come with one message only: SPEED.

And how about the other sickening ads? Well, we will have to wait for the 2014 general election when all political parties come up with the absurdly same message: prosperity and justice for all and of course, a clean government.



the thought you read above is also published by The Jakarta Post March 23, 2010.