Julie Luongo

“People need something or someone to fasten themselves to in order to reassure themselves that they are real.” ~Ani Difranco

Ad on Shine

Yahoo!: “the company that brought you the awkward exclamation point as part of their name” has a new site for women and they sent me an advertisement to entice me to check it out. Here’s the hook:

LET’S DISH ABOUT LOVE, JOBS, AND SHOES.

This could get interesting. From fashion disasters
to parenting advice, you’ll find women talking —
and laughing — about it at Shine.

Here’s my revision to their ad copy: Fashion! Parenting! Laughing! It could get interesting. It probably won’t. But it could. [It won't.]

Naturally, since the ad copy was so obviously aimed at women without taste or sense or even a few cool interests (shoes are not an interest), I had to check it out because I’m always curious about witless simpletons and dullards. (Before I continue, I’d like to be clear … I did not go with an open mind.)

At Shine, I found links to these articles / stories / blather:

• Is it ever OK to bring your baby to work?
• Get happier when you quit nagging.
• 5 ways to find your ideal weight (and none of them involve a scale)
• Want to be a runner? Start by eating these 8 foods
• 10 things men love about your body
• The best and worst hairstyles from Oscars red carpet
• Would your world be less shiny without shine????

Four question marks? They really wanted to know. And then I wanted to know. What could be more enticing than excessive punctuation? So, I skimmed the post. There was some back patting about the regulars and some tips on forum etiquette. Gah. Can’t. Read. That.

I tried another. “Celeb obsessions we don’t understand.” Here I learned that Jennifer Love Hewitt dressed up as Holly Golightly for her 30th birthday and ate breakfast at Tiffany’s. Isn’t that a jewelry store? Oh, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.

So, OK, Love Hewitt played Audrey Hepburn in a TV movie in 2000 … maybe she was pimping that? I doubt it. She’s probably just over-identifying with the character. Sure, I think it’s super-creepy. But most people don’t. Check out the abundance of character tattoos and you’ll see that this phenomenon is fairly widespread. Weird. Don’t even get me started on the cult of Tinkerbell. (Aside to fans: It is not a unique and original expression of self to decorate your world with mass-produced Disney character flotsam.)

I skimmed the next celeb obsession which was about Britney’s addiction to her gross exes. It was about a private conversation she had with some people in her life who her father has a restraining order against. This seems like personal information. Talk about celebrity obsessions.

Back to the home page, I tried to find something else to check out … “what does your boyfriend think of your boy friends?” (who cares?) “Can morning breath ever be sexy?” (only one question mark????) and “stop the presses, a man chooses cuddling and kissing over sex” (possible outbreak alert). I opted to check out the community – in “current favorite threads.” Maybe there will be Laughter!

I had three choices here:

1. The down and dirty guide to dating: jerkiest guy moments
2. Sleeping Around: Should parents co-sleep with their kids?
3. The Crunch is on. Advice Appreciated . . . about someone who wants motivation to lose weight for a wedding.

Co-sleep? Gah. I was hoping for laughs, but got a fun new word instead. I’m still not going to read about it. Nor can I bear diet / exercise motivation advice. Jerky men? Oh, don’t women love to talk about what idiots men are? You’d think males were just a bunch of mouth-breathers with untied shoelaces and subscriptions to porn sites if you asked these women. But, you know, birds of a feather. What I mean is that it makes sense that obnoxious women with no propriety couple up with men who are jerks. They’re probably also the same women who can be insulted into clicking the lip plumping ad (above).

Bottom line: Shine is the same old dull I expected it would be when I read the ad copy. Yahoo!

“Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.” ~William Osler

Artistic Dramatization

I’ve been watching Arrested Development on Hulu.com, which is a great site if you don’t have cable. You only have to suffer a few mini-commercials. Naturally, this Dove “soap scum tv commercial” is driving me mad. The ad tag reads:

“Find out what your bar soap could be leaving behind.”

Not the most definitive statement. But, that’s good. At least, by saying “could” instead of “is” it’s being somewhat honest. Then the voice over goes and wrecks it:

Is your bar of soap leaving scum on your skin?

We asked one woman to wash with soap (soap in hard water)

Another with Dove. (Dove in hard water)

If you could see the difference, you’d see that soap actually leaves an invisible of scum on your skin.

(artistic dramatization)

Our “proof” … the “evidence” …  is an artist’s rendering of invisible soap scum. Oh, brother. The Artistic Dramatization (above) makes the woman look like an hourly rate hotel room under a black light. Call me crazy, but I don’t really trust this Artistic Dramatization. It might be taking Artistic License. But I guess this is just another whistle stop in the “campaign for real beauty.” Creating, I mean, eliminating the invisible threat of scum. Rah!