FortKnox's Journal: Sprite Commercial

I finally saw the commercial technolust talked about. Its about all these people that touched Kobe Bryant's life. They say stuff like "I told him to study more", and "he should work a little harder in his classwork", then finally it shows him as an NBA star (Kobe Bryant skipped all of college to be drafted to the NBA straight from high school).
It ends as "Be yourself drink sprite".

Honestly, do you want to tell kids "parents want you to be smart, but be yourself and do what you want?"
I mean, come on! Honestly, I wouldn't of graduated college if my father didn't have his foot stuck in my rear (figuratively, of course).
Sure, one in fifteen thousand college atheletes become professional stars, but 99.9999% of them need to graduate college.
I see this sprite commercial as "Be yourself, even if it means failing and becoming a blue collar worker, trying to support your family with your small paycheck, and drink sprite!"
Or "Be yourself, go ahead and smoke that dope even if your parents don't let you, and go on to stronger drugs. You may die, but at least you bought some Sprite!"

God, this agrivates me more as a to-be father. Most teenagers need guidance. I hope my son will ask me for direction. Why would you market this crap?

I'm gonna get myself an email together to write to Sprite.

I agree

[Dead Penis Bird]

That commerical is almost scary. It's almost as if they give a mighty "Fuck you" to the notion of staying in school and getting an education.

The problem is, 99.999% of TV watchers do not possess the talent that Kobe has, so not getting an education means getting a lower-paying job.

I guess that's the price of "being yourself".

Re:I agree

[heliocentric]

I see the concept about staying in school, but I think we can take it even further. What about those at the point of a decision about going for more school or just "being what they are" and not furthering themselves.

I think the whole deal is a pretty crappy message.

Heh

[cavemanf16]

You may want to let the lead singer of the band Korn know how you feel as well. Last I heard, he planned to let his newborn son grow up and make his own rules as that would give his son the best opportunities in life to be free from any sort of oppression. Now I don't know how the lead singer guy grew up, but my guess is there was either no father figure, or an abusive and/or non-caring father in his home. I can understand how he feels, but that doesn't make this decision to let a child grow up doing whatever they want right.

This is a common myth in our society today: relativism. That is, the method of contentment and well-being in life, is dictated by the amount of contentment and well-being in your own life, regardless of the consequences to others. See the circular reasoning? And please, someone who wants to refute my claim that relativism is absolute hog-wash, first show me why the terrorists from 9/11 should be pursued and punished... after all, they were just following their beliefs about what was "right", right?

Guidance

[gmhowell]

Feh! Don't you remember your teen years? Would you have listened to 'guidance'? Me neither, but I'll try anyway. Barring that, I'll move us to a shack in Montana.

FWIW, I stopped drinking sprite after reading Technolust's ad. Switched to 7-up or that PepsiCo replacement (Mist? 7-Up is better). I still miss Sprite, but these ads are bullshit.