(no subject)

Day 15 of this 30/30 meme is "fanfic". I don't read it or write it so i really don't have an opinion on it. I shouldn't say i have never read it. There are a couple of books by Daran Little and one or two others about the history of Coronation Street that all takes place before the show actually starts in 1960. There are two novels about some of the older characters when they were young adults during World War II (I.e. Elsie Tanner, a young mom, running after soldiers and the disapproving middle aged Ena Sharples... that sort of thing). Another book is supposed to be a non fictional history of the Street back to the turn of the 20th century when it was built. It takes each house along the street and talks about who lived in it right back to that starting point, making up families, some of whom would be ancestors to the characters in the 60s. So i guess that would be fanfic even if it was written by the show's archivist at the time.

I despair

I'm flipping through Vanity Fair, which is actually a pretty good magazine. I'm looking at all the glossy ads. This one for a men's cologne is using the very handsome Matthew MacConaughey. It makes me think the cologne probably smells really nice and sexy. That's what the ad is hoping i will feel, but, it worked except i'm not going to go out and buy it. Effective advertising, mind you.

I see an ad for a cream that will make you look 10 years younger if you use it regularly. The model in the ad looks about... oh...12. She probably is or not far from it. Now is that going to make me want to buy it? If i was in my 20s maybe. At 50? Pah. Not a chance i'll ever look that young. Advertising Fail.

Oh look. There's Demi Moore. She's got a new perfume out and there she is surrounded by the suggestions of hot young men. If you use this perfume, ladies, you'll attract them all too. Except. Well. Demi doesn't really look like herself. She looks about the same age as that other model. Maybe she's been using that 10-year-younger cream? Nah. Photoshop. This is what she looks like. She's a little younger than me and looks close to it. But she's still pretty gorgeous, isn't she? I'd be a lot more likely to want to buy her perfume if i saw the real her surrounded by hot young men. After all, she really did attract a good looking younger man and married him. And that was before she sponsored this new perfume. "Wanted" is it's name. I wanted to like the ad. But i didn't. Fail.

It's bad enough trying to sell makeup and products to make you look younger, using a child model or nearly so. It's even worse when you're making an adult with a few years experience under their belt look like one too. And Matthew? Yes it looks like he's had a few wrinkles and bags smoothed out of his face for the ad as well.

But he's still hot in that ad.