Are We Pretending We Don't Know That?

They wanted a whole marketing campaign

And I was--

I can’t say ‘No’

Because I’m in the office

Twelve hours a day

So I gotta be doing something

But that whole pitch was--

It was gobbledy gook, you know?

It was nonsense

I just spit out

Whatever was first in my--

It was like stream of consciousness advertising

Like shit you’d see on Mad Men

If Mad Men were the least sexiest thing ever

And they were impressed

But, like, they wanted to see results

They wanted to know

How this was going to impact that

And how that

Was going to trickle down

To this

Those fuckers

Did their homework

Which was really

Fucking annoying

To tell you the truth

Advertising is perception

You want proof of perception?

How the fuck am I supposed to--

You know, I’ll tell you something

The clients are too damn smart

And they’re getting smarter

And our industry?

Our industry is not accounting

For how savvy these fuckers

Are getting

It is not--our industry is not

Taking it

Into consideration

They have a restaurant

And they’re sitting there

Asking me

Why nobody’s going to it

Jesus fucking Christ

I don’t know

Why nobody’s

Going to your restaurant

Nobody’s going anywhere anymore

I mean--are we all pretending we don’t know that?

People

Are not

Going out

That is just--

That is just a fact

And it’s our jobs

To make them go out?

I asked that once

At a meeting

I asked that very question

And my boss goes--

Well yeah, Chris

It is our job

As if it was the most obvious thing in the world

When really--

We’re not talking about--

Oh, put up a billboard here

And an ad in this magazine

And Bam!

You’re good to go

We’re not talking about that

We’re talking about a cultural tide

A shift in the way people, you know--

We’re talking about Netflix

And Hello Fresh!

And the other one--

What’s the other one?

Blue Apron!

That one, yeah

We’re talking about a society

That, for years, has been dreaming

Of living in that fucking apartment

From The Jetsons

Never leaving their house

Because they’d have everything they needed

Right there

And guess what, you guys?

We’re there

We’ve finally fucking landed there

In that future

With The Jetsons

And now I’m sitting in a meeting

And some restaurant chain is like--

How do we fix this?

How do we fix what?

The fact that civilization

Finally achieved its greatest dream

And that the dream was isolation?

Gee, I don’t fucking know

I don’t know how to fix that

Yeah, I get that it makes my job

Fucking null and void

But that doesn’t mean
I know what to do about it

So I put up a billboard

And take out an ad in a magazine

And like--

That’s it

That’s the best I got

You think you can do better?

Go for it

But until then

I’m going to sit on my ass for twelve hours

And wait for somebody to notice

That I’m a goddamn dinosaur

So they can stick me

In a museum

That’s it, you know?

That’s all I can do