I blame it on Homer Simpson. He was the "iconic" (God, I hate that word) archetype of the turn of the 21st century, and Homer never had a comfortable relationship with his brain.
But he was the tip of the iceberg of ads featuring dumb guys. The classic was of course the idiot trying to make guacamole by throwing a whole avocado into a blender and watching vacant eyed as the thing bounced about.
Since guys run the show I figured this "guys is dum" thing marked some sort of ideological shift or new tactic in the ongoing war between the sexes, as in don’t blame me for being cruel, insensitive, or simply brutal because I am too DUM to know better.
But now it appears the ad guys have bought their own line.
Coors is touting as a major breakthrough in beer drinking science a can that tells the booze hound when his beer is sufficiently cold. Talk about DUM. Whatever happened–I don’t know–to grabbing the beer in your hand to see if it was cold enough. I have got to believe experienced beer drinkers have no trouble doing that and if they are really experience they really don’t care if it’s cold enough. I mean are guys going to sit around peering into the frig waiting for the beer to tell them it is cold enough.
And just as idiotic, or even more so, is a razor that has some sort of strip on it that tells the guy using the razor when he needs to replace it with a new razor. Whatever happened–I don’t know–to applying the razor to your face and if it feels as if you are shaving your face with sandpaper, well, maybe you ought to get a new one. That’s how I have always decided that I needed another razor and I have had no problems doing it.
Guys are now so DUM that they can’t even trust their own senses.
One guy writing on the consumer society argued that it (and its diverse forms of advertising) tends to make people dependent and doubtful about their own intuition. This new beer can and this new razor would appear instances of that claim.
And there’s something going on here too about the nature of the decision making process–probably too complicated to go into here. But signs on cans and razors that tell you when the can is cold enough or the razor is worn out save a person the trouble, I guess it is, of deciding on the basis of experience and the sense of touch whether the beer is cold enough or the razor is worn out. It’s better, I guess, and less painful just to have your razor tell you it is worn out rather than make that painful decision all on one’s own.
Several years ago, I knew a female student who wore a t-shirt that said, “Boys are dumb.” I thought it was kind of cute. After all, I grew up with FOUR brothers. She had a boyfriend at the time. Years later, I heard that she was gay which probably explains the t-shirt. I am so frickin’ naive.