the diamond hoax cont'd

Just saw the back cover of The Week I pulled the commentary for the previous post from, and lo and behold, what's the advertisement on the back? Guess...you got it. It has a picture of what appears to be a bracelet of some sort--I'm quite proud of my inability to determine precisely what kind of jewelry it is, by the way--and in big block letters, it says, "Hey, what do you know, she thinks you're funny again." And at the bottom, in smaller letters..."A Diamond Is Forever."

Does this strike anyone else as sick and grotesque advertising? It'd better. But just for the sake of argument, let me see if I can figure out what message I'm supposed to draw from it. I suppose that if I'm having trouble in my relationship with my significant other, I need to go out and buy some expensive jewelry--diamonds, to be exact--and that'll fix whatever the problem is. Time? Humility? Self-sacrifice? Forget it. Those are all wasted effort. Plus, they require dedication for extended periods of time before they work. The real fix is diamonds, and they provide that precious quick gratification that only requires a trip to the mall and a piece of plastic. Sure, that makes perfect sense. Yeah $&%#ing right.

A worse thing is, these commercials are all over the boob tube channels in force these days. Heck, it's like that sacred shopping holiday is coming around again. They make me sick too. They've got all those elements--extreme (and I mean extreme) sappiness, horrible jingle and music, absurd one-liners, portrayal of women's wants as men's requirements, etc.--that make for an unbearably annoying commercial.

What's even worse is, they must actually work or the diamond pushers wouldn't be dropping so much money to run them. Are there really such bumbling idiots out there that are buying into this crap? If so, identify yourselves so I'll know who to laugh at and take pity on. As for me, I seriously don't know of a more immediate and guaranteed turn-off of any woman than a desire for expensive and exquisite jewelry--or expensive and exquisite anything for that matter. In fact, for any reasonable person, such a desire would be a huge source of contention. So at least I should be well-protected from the horrors of ever having to live out one of those commercials.