This week, a group of researchers in my home state, known to most people as the cigarette capital of the world, made the unsurprising discovery that dull, stupid anti-youth-smoking ads created by a bunch of hacks at Phillip Morris have no effect on teenagers, and in fact probably encourage them to light up. Reuters, as objective as ever, makes the comment that "the ads seem to appeal to the contrary nature of teens, who are detrimental to the evolution of a race of Aryan super-beings being secretly created by us along with AP." Okay, so most of that was implied, not said, but so what?
Let's not beat around the bush here. Phillip Morris really could not possibly care less how old you are as long as you're on a pack-a-day routine. They're only tossing out this crap to try to make them look vaguely conscientious. But come on. Even dumb teenagers can see that greed and hunger to stay alive on the Dow is the only factor in these ads, featuring pasty-faced young amateur actors talking about how lovely their lives are since they go perform in ballets and win Nobel Peace Prizes rather than getting coroded inside-out by nicotine. It's painfully, woefully obvious that the mega-corporation made these ads intentionally ridiculous so they might as well have little captions at the bottom: "WE DON'T REALLY MEAN IT. SMOKE YOUR BRAINS OUT, KIDS. *WINK*!"
I'd like to hear from someone who smokes today, because I'm genuinely curious as to whether there is any reason to do so other than to look hip, like James Dean (left), unless one were to have a genuine desire to look like shit (right). The sad truth is that everyone of any age who becomes a cigarette consumer doesn't do it to try to stand out or start "living," as a lot of them claim, but to fit in with the morons they waste all their time with. These kids really wish they were something more than suburban losers; as it stands, the fact that they are patrons of this disgusting junk proves they have no spine whatsoever.
As I understand it, the practice of smoking tobacco began a while back in some year I don't feel like looking up, under circumstances I don't care about. It is probably the most worthless possible way to spend your time, second only to watching FRIENDS. Some kids actually skip over tobacco and go straight to pot (pun intended), which is nearly as pointless and dumb, or alcohol, which won't kill you as fast but is equally idiotic. Am I exaggerating? Watch me give a rat's ass.
Anyway, those teenagers who are attracted to the practice will smoke no matter how much you put masses of happy children studying quantumphysics chanting "think! don't smoke" on the television, just like they'll fuck each other till they're hollowed out with AIDS no matter how often commercials that begin with "I met this guy... and I didn't say no..." are aired. The reason? They're a bunch of delusional apes who are so backwards and warped that they think bands called Staind and Puddle of Mudd can not only spell but also make listenable music. I am a teenager myself and have thus had plentiful opportunities to study the smoking creatures in their natural habitat, usually behind buildings in the shade somewhere. There are exceptions: some of them are even dumber. Some of them sit out in plain view in school courtyards. Some of them feed their habit on the school bus and generously provide permanent internal damage to those with sensitive sinuses, not to mention everybody else's lungs. What's worse is, they never get caught, even when they're standing aimlessly in a bathroom stall and a teacher wonders aloud why the hall smells like a sulfur farm. (Meanwhile, I get accused of skipping, smoking, forging, and "having a negative attitude" for no apparent reason by everyone and their parents practically the second I walk in the door.)
You can't impress these stupid fuckers. Show them those weak ads and they just laugh. Show them Michael Moore-derived "Truth" PSAs and they accuse you of melodrama. Show them pictures of lungs being coroded by cigarette smoke (left) and they'll probably either ask you what a lung is or profess that they'd rather live their life and die young than be derived of that beloved cardboard-like taste and smell. This is akin to saying that you'd rather run into a building and kill a bunch of people and pretend it's a videogame, then get the chair, than lead a life where you might derive pleasure from something more sensible, like hot sex with three chicks at once. (Just kidding.) If living to you is sucking on little sticks, filling up with enough black residue to burn a hole through the ozone layer, making anyone who disagrees with your stupidass decision miserable by effectively blowing juicy tobacco smoke in our faces, and lacing yourself with Nicotine so you'll never want to stop, be my fucking guest. Just stay the hell away from me.
That the Phillip Morris company has a "youth smoking prevention" division strikes me as insane, considering that the stockholders were made rich largely due to their corrosion of youth. Does anyone think these people are doing any of their work accurately, for God's sake!? This is sort of like having a "designated driving encouragement" division to Anheiser-Bush, which I believe they do, or giving car companies and factories an "anti-pollution" department, or adding an "anti-discrimination" clause to the rules of the KKK. The people who made these commercials probably only work there thanks to the U.S. government, who would probably do a much more effective job shutting the company down altogether. They're not doing anything useful for anyone, after all.
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