Overdone

I have a feeling this is gonna be one of my worst blog entries ever, but oh well, I am annoyed and something needs to be said. The thing is, I am really tired of all the variations on that stupid MasterCard commercial. They need a new idea, instead of relying on creativity that wore out long ago.

I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about, those MasterCard ads that go went something like this:

"Plane Ticket: $200
Camera: $150
Taking a picture with your great grandma who lives somewhere far from you hence the plane ticket: Priceless"

Ok, so that one I made up, and you are probably saying to yourself, "not like this guy should be talking about other people's lack of creativity." But I am kind of tired and I don't feel like putting more thought into something like this. Everyone knows what I am talking about anyways, just getting the point across.

Well, in the time since then, MasterCard has come out with about 5 billion more variations on that ad in any way possible. Some of them might pretend to be fresh, but in the end, it is still a rehash of the same thing.

I guess it was a pretty clever idea for a commercial at the time, maybe even the kind that makes you wonder "Who are the ad wizards that came up with that one?" (who knows where that quote is from?). Well, I'm telling you, these ad wizards need to think of a new idea.

But it would be one thing if it were just the MasterCard people using it. After all, they came up with the idea, and it's their problem if they want to be known as the people who came up with one good idea for a commercial and sucked it dry for a few years, while the ad wizards sat around doing jack.

Unfortunately, it seems to me like everybody is using that stupid idea now. Maybe it's just me, but I read some random people's blogs, I see people's email signatures, and any time somebody needs to sound like they wrote something funny, they use the "Priceless" thing. It's getting old, real old.

Maybe I am just being grumpy. I've seen a couple that I actually like. One went something like this:

"AEM Cold Air Intake: $80
Stillen Y-Pipe: $250
Greddy Catback Exhaust: $400
Mustangs eating your dust: Priceless
There are some things a V6 can't beat... for everything else, there's MAXIMA"

Ok, I probably only liked one that because I like Maximas, but hey, "Maxima" sounds like "MasterCard" so that adds another dimension to the cleverness, alright?

Enough with complaing about this though, nobody understands why I am mad about something this insignificant anyways. I'm just saying, whenever someone comes up with a good idea in this world, it almost always ends up being overdone. It gets annoying that 99% of people in this world rely heavily on other people's creativity, and that 99% of what we are surrounded by is recycled ideas rather than true originality.

One other thing that is bothering me is what's going on with the song "Sweet Home Alabama." Not that it's a terrible song, it's actually not bad, but why did they have to name a movie after the song? How lame is it when movie writers actually base the story on a song title, they gotta make sure that the main character is from Alabama and everything. And just off the top of my head, I can think of two other movies that have used that same song in a big scene, so it's definitely not a fresh idea (the movies I'm thinking of are Con Air and Forrest Gump, there are probably others).

For the sake of supporting my weak and faltering arguments so far, I guess I will list some other things that are copied these days and way overdone.

Boy bands/Female Pop Stars - Backstreet and N Sync were not bad, even 98 Degrees was cool for a while, but O-Town, LFO, Westlife, and Soul Decision I could have done without. And Britney was the first and only queen ever of teenie pop, forget Christina, Jessica, or Mandy.

Reality TV shows - Real World has been around for a while, but after Survivor, there are too many to list that have followed since then. Same goes for primetime game shows after Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? One minute it's the only show of its kind, next thing you know, 800 more pop up that are almost exactly like it, only on different channels.

Japanese baseball players - Nomo was good, but then Hideki Irabu scared all the GMs away from Japan for a while. Then Ichiro came, and the flood began again. Seriously, how did a piece of crap like Tsuyoshi Shinjo end up here?

Awards ceremonies - I already wrote about this before.

Creative Terrorism - Someone decides to think of a wacky idea to kill innocent people senselessly, and then every extremist Islamic schmoe thinks he can do one better. They used to just hijack planes and kidnap hostages. Now people are flying the planes into buildings and burying bombs in their shoes as if they were Osama himself. Come on guys, don't you think American society has had it by now with the show? We are too saturated to be able to handle any more of this off the wall stuff so it's time to move onto something else.

(aside) Why attack Bali? Is it because you stupid fairies can't break through the tightened security in the US, so you go for a tourist location halfway across the world instead?

Extra-huge SUVs - I can remember when only a limited number of people drove Jeeps, Ford Explorers, or Chevy Blazers. They were usually for construction workers or park rangers, people who actually needed to haul stuff or drive through mud. Then, everyone started buying them. Then, they started to make them bigger. I see more and more Ford Expeditions and Excursions, Cadillac Escalades, Toyota Sequoias, etc. on the road now. Too much, I say.

Dance step video games - I never liked those to begin with... now they are all over the place.

Tattoos of Chinese Characters - It was kind of a novel idea at first, but when I start seeing every skanky white girl, every inbred trailer trash wife-beater wearing hick, or every dumb rookie NBA player start putting up words on their body that don't even make any sense, I gotta say enough is enough. What a disgrace to the beauty of the Chinese written language.

Notice one thing about a lot of these examples: the first and original is usually the best. Often imitated, rarely duplicated.

I don't know why I am so peevish lately. The next blog, whenever I write it, will be positive, I promise.