Didactic Synapse

Didactic Synapse is proud to present a new feature: Through the Shades. Using the metaphor of the 1988 movie They Live, I’ll be deconstructing popular media to expose the festering putrescence beneath the veneer of consumerist fulfillment.

Walgreens has been running the “Dance Team” commercial in regular rotation recently on Hulu (a paid service which still forces hideous ads down our throats). I don’t really recommend watching it, but here it is anyway:

There are so many things that nauseate me here, but it’s taken me a while to sort through them. Let’s start with…

• Walgreens’ slogan: “At the Corner of Happy and Healthy”. No one in Walgreens is healthy. That’s why they’re in Walgreens! If my health were good, why would I be standing in line to fill my acid reflux prescription? And no one in Walgreens is happy, either. I live two blocks from a Walgreens, and everyone always has horrible desperation painted on their faces. Whether feeding their nicotine fix, stuffing chocolate into their craven maws (my usual purpose), or purchasing cheap sunglasses to ward off UAV blindness, we’re all stumbling around in a discontented daze under fluorescent misery.

Lest anyone think I’m a total sourpuss, let me confess to some positives in this spot:

• The dance team is profoundly multicultural. African-American, Asian-American, white-American, all bouncing around with each other and gettin down on stage. Dance Mom is a strong black woman who’s able to problem-solve and “never miss a beat”. She’s adaptive, supportive, and joyous.
• It’s a fun 30 seconds. The girl on the sidewalk is into it. The music is peppy and the expressions are filled with enthusiasm. These adorable kids are not just having fun; this is the best weekend of their lives so far. They take 6th at the competition, but they couldn’t be happier.
• Old and new technologies are blended seamlessly. Dance Mom is snapping pictures with her phone (while dancing, which must have resulted in some blurry shots that got deleted), but she gets them developed into 4 x 6 glossies. Tweens and middle-aged folks all get what they want.

Ironically, it is this relentless positivity that sickens me the most. So let’s explore the negatives already.

• The goal is for us to buy more stuff we don’t need. Like all commercials, this ad works in service to a blind fanatical consumerism, tied bone-deep into an affiliation with joy and happiness. We’re supposed to take those fun, peppy sensations and transfer them into our Walgreens schema. Just as we all get warm fuzzy associations with Disney starting at age zero (to the point where some of us just move into corporate HQ), the goal of modern advertising is not merely to convince us to buy one laundry detergent or athletic shoe. Instead, we’re meant to rearrange our entire psychology to link permanently the fun of these young people with the Walgreens brand. Kids can’t just be dancing to have fun anymore — they must do so for the benefit of a huge corporate ad blitz.
• The flip side is a gut-level rejection of joy. Those of us who hate being manipulated by this kind of advertising reflexively make angry faces and roll our eyes when it begins. The more pervasive and ubiquitous this advertising is (and it gets more so every day), the more we make these faces and feel our stomachs churn. The danger is that we might eventually associate all instances of cute kids dancing and having fun with corporate manipulation, and then we become sour, bitter, cynical crankypants weirdos. (Or, in my case, more so.)
• Three trips to Walgreens!? As soon as Sidewalk Girl gets in the minivan, her friend announces her Hair Disaster, which we’ll be generous and accept as a legit problem because they’re going into a competition. (It’s another example of advertising telling young girls that they never look good enough, but let’s give Walgreens the benefit of the doubt on this one.) Dance Mom assures her that it’s not a problem, and proceeds to pull a cache of hair products from her canvas Walgreens bag. (A not-at-all-subtle conflation of the corporate brand with environmental thinking, which is absurd and offensive, since Walgreens tosses every tiny thing we buy into atrocious plastic bags because they’re inexpensive.) Then, the whole team must go en masse and en danser into Walgreens again to buy makeup. (Lipstick? Mascara? Blemish remover?) Then, after the competition, they’ve got to swing back into Walgreens to get the developed pictures (sent from the phone, I imagine?) and buy some bags of snacks for the celebratory ride home. What nonsense.
• Dancing inside Walgreens. This is the most horrible absurdity in the entire commercial, because suspension of disbelief breaks down completely. (And if it doesn’t break down for you, then your brain has been overtaken by the alien propaganda machine and you need serious help.) The only people dancing inside a Walgreens are people suffering from chronic irritable bowel syndrome who are having trouble waiting to buy diarrhea medicine.

There’s more, but that’s enough complaining for one afternoon. You’re a terrible company, Walgreens, and I urge you to stop running this commercial immediately. Thank you.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve done a podcast, and I appreciate all the kind words of encouragement (and demands) that I’ve gotten. Here, finally, is the new show! (Yay.)

DS#98: A Huge Explosion of News

Top Links + Action

• Forbes: Wall Street Costs The Economy 2% Of GDP Each Year
• Wall Street’s threat to the American middle class
• What I Want People To Understand About Why Teachers Are Frustrated
• Take Action: Free Raif!

Current Events

• Baltimore riots: the fire this time and the fire last time and the time between
• Rachel Dolezal
  • It Isn’t Crazy to Compare Rachel Dolezal With Caitlyn Jenner, But They’re Very Different
  • Dolezal on MSNBC
  • An American Kidnapping (This is the story that should be getting the media’s attention!)
• Scott Walker!
  • Enter Scott Walker, Stage Right
  • GOP Contender Walker Draws Wall Street Cash
  • Scott Walker tells CPAC that facing protesters prepares him for Islamic State, later clarifies
• Fracking!
  • High levels of benzene found in fracking waste water
  • Documents Reveal EPA’s National Fracking Study Halted by Industry Pressure
  • EPA Study of Fracking Finds ‘No Widespread, Systemic’ Pollution (Be sure to read the article above for important info about what’s not in the EPA study.)
  • Oil & gas execs ‘pressured’ Oklahoma geologists not to reveal fracking-quakes link
  • Upstate New York towns consider secession after state bans fracking
  • Florida Lawmakers Pass Bill That Arrests Local Efforts To Ban Fracking
  • Small amounts of fracking chemicals found in Pennsylvania drinking water
• Ebola: Early calls for help ‘ignored’ says MSF

Economics

• Walmart to give 500,000 employees pay raises, improve scheduling and training programs
• Classic Wall Street Villain to Haters: “Bite Me”
• Reflections on Stress and Long Hours on Wall Street
• A father’s heartbreaking essay about the untimely death of his 22-year-old Goldman Sachs analyst son
• Banks Prep Defense for Anti-Wall Street Campaigns
• Barack Obama advances rule hitting Wall Street, financial advisers
• We Thought Our Pay Would Be Higher, Wall Streeters Say in Poll
• HFT satire from The Onion: Wall Street Firm Develops New High-Speed Algorithm Capable Of Performing Over 10,000 Ethical Violations Per Second
• SkyMall Files for Bankruptcy

Education

• NPR: Where Have All The Teachers Gone?
• NPR: How Do You Motivate Kids To Stop Skipping School?
• BW: News Corp.’s $1 Billion Plan to Overhaul Education Is Riddled With Failures
• An Open Letter to Governor Walker

Killer Robots, Etc

• These military-funded robots learn by watching YouTube
• Japanese bank introduces robot workers to deal with customers in branches

Hip-Hop

Lupe Fiasco: “Mural”