a mom discovers....

:-)  Anyone else amused by the advertising headlines on websites?  A mom discovers this, a mom likes that, a mom does something-or-other....

Perhaps marketers have decided that the word is magical.  Take an idea that's close to our cultural hearts, dumb it down, make it cuddlier, stick it in some unlikely places, and voila -- $ALE$!!!

I have to confess, "ad execs" have been pushing my buttons (in a negative way) for a looooong time.  When talking about them, you just HAVE to abbreviate their titles, because of course this is what they're all about:  short cuts to fame and glory.  AD-ver-ti-sing....  Way too many syllables.  May confuse people.  I can't even stand comedies about the business -- their "reasoning" just offends my logic circuits.  I really enjoy the film-noir classic "Laura" for many reasons, but when it came out that she was in advertising, my thought was, oh go ahead and kill off your title character, it's not like the world needs more of THOSE.  ;-)

Then, there's the very word "mom"....  "I'm a MAWWWM."  I seem to recall the first time i heard this in a commercial; i stared at the screen in nauseated fascination.  What kind of person defines herself as a mawwwm?  You kinda expect her to continue by saying, "I overindulge my children and micromanage their lives.  I allow them to defy their teachers, be rude to service people, and become bad citizens, because i want to be their FRIEND."

EEEEK!!!  ...Sorry, that just slipped out.

The only thing that competes on the same level with this marketing gambit is the the "one weird trick" technique.  I have to wonder if they have no intention of TRYING to sell their one weird trick, and it's only to generate more traffic to the site in question, and therefore sell more advertising THERE?  Maybe it's one big convoluted ad-selling cycle?  You travel from one site to the next to the next to the next, and back to the first....  Talk about money for nothing!

It just amazes me that this stuff is effective.  I've concluded that the field is for natural-born con artists with an honest streak, like cold-case specialists are the opposite side of the coin from stalking psychopaths.  Raymond Chandler (yes, i DO like that genre...) hit the nail on the head when he described chess, "as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency."