Laziness and self-medication have become time-honored traditions here in the good ol' U.S. of A. Thusly, our gas stations have been besieged by a combatant to the first and an accelerant to the latter. To wit, 5-Hour Energy.
Right off the bat I'm confused by the guy's alarm clock going off at 6:08. That seems like a really strange time to set your alarm clock. Even if we suppose that the 6:08 beeping is the snooze going off, the only semi-reasonable time for him to have set his clock would be 5:50 (allowing two snoozes at standard 9-minute intervals), and that's still pretty damned odd. But as you can probably assume, there are bigger issues intact than the obsessive compulsive alarm clock habits of a sullen, fatigue-ridden doofus.
From the outset, the voice-over tells us what we need to know about this guy. The inflection of his voice is so whiny he makes Thom Yorke sound like Lemmy Kilmister. Just listen to the part where he says "Great, I have 20 minutes" and tell me you don't want to go Derek Vinyard on this dude and curb stomp his teeth. The guy is wearing a t-shirt that looks like a fucking muumuu. And are we supposed to believe that this guy's house is so impeccably kept when he's sleeping alone? I know there's not very much in the way of decor, but no single guy I've ever known has spotless living quarters like this guy. Plus, I thought the point of the commercial was to establish how tired this dude is. You would think his house would look like a cross between a hardcore World of Warcraft player's bedroom and a livestock barn.
The most annoying part of the entire commercial is when he "drinks" the energy shot. My friend Bird and I are always pissed when we watch a show or movie and the actors take a drink, only it's obvious there is nothing really in the container. You see this a lot in movies where alcohol is supposedly being consumed, and it's the same case for this dumbass drinking 5-Hour Energy. He downs it in literally one second.
Pause the video at roughly :19 (right after he swallows the shot) and you may agree that the Vinyard curb stomp might be too generous for this guy. We might need to ramp it up a la Patrick Bateman and go with a poncho and a big ass axe. And the "Let's do this" line is fucking outrageous. Never in my life have I given myself a lame ass pep talk as I walk out the door for work. I need to calm myself down before I start trying to Google this guy's name and address.
In looking at the logic they're trying to present I noticed that in order for this guy to sustain energy all day he would probably need to take another shot around noon. Presumably, this would get him through his work day and home, at which point it wouldn't matter if he crashed. So, conservatively, we're looking at about $6 a day spent on 5-Hour Energy.
Even if we only allow for weekday consumption, as this dude may zonk out all weekend (he doesn't appear to have a bustling social calendar), we're talking about approximately $120-$140 per month in energy drink costs. How the hell does this make sense? I sleep 4-5 hours per night and consume an energy drink maybe once every two months. Too many people try to rely on wonder drugs/drinks/pills to simply perform everyday tasks. It's as if everyone suffers from some sort of paranoid hypochondria. A simpler solution is for people to just get enough sleep to support their lifestyle. Red Bull, Monster, Amp, Full Throttle, NOS, Crunk, Rockstar, Vault... and dozens more (including alcoholic versions like Sparks and Four Loko, which are actually pretty awesome) crowd the coolers in stores. Plus, we have the obsession with coffee that has taken over this country. Do we really need all of this shit? What ever happened to gaining energy the natural way, with cocaine?
I figured with the insane prices they're charging for 5-Hour Energy they would be able to procure better actors and writers in commercials. In the end, this commercial is not funny or effective. It's not clever in any way. It's just a dude in a giant t-shirt bitching, fake drinking and looking stupid.
Final Grade: F
0 comments:
Post a Comment