Veritable Tantrum

There’s this short video that went nuts on Reddit today. It’s about a guy whose life flashes before his eyes as he’s about to go under the knife after a heart attack.

Don’t worry, it’s safe for work. No blood or man-titties or nothin’! But it’s not safe for the MIND, which I’ll talk about in a sec. You can watch the video right here…

On a technical level, it’s a really well-made commercial. It almost feels like it’s ripped out of the Requiem for a Dream playbook. The camera’s quick cuts and angles of perspective make it feel dreadful — like you’re actually dying along with this guy.

And I absolutely hate this PSA because it is exactly what it is. It’s a goddamn PSA that accomplishes what all PSAs try to accomplish: it makes you feel guilty about a behavior you engage in all the time by showing you an EXTREME case of that behavior in a STYLISTIC FASHION.

I’m convinced most PSA directors have shrines of David Fincher in their closets. They try to create as much intensity as possible in order for their work to stand out stylistically. Except to them, intensity means having texter-drivers kill a baby or thundertwat tweens get arrested for cyberbullying their victim onto a ledge.

In this video’s case, we see a middle-aged guy eat his way back to childhood where it all started. We see his stupid mom feed him his first french fry as a baby because he keeps wailing and throwing shit everywhere. She gives him fries because, as she says, “it’s the only thing that’ll make him stop.”

A lot of this video hits close to home with me (I’ve never been obese but have certainly shoveled garbage into my wide open trap and felt shitty about it after), but that french fry scene particularly strikes a chord. That’s the moment when the melodrama of this whole video actually cuts through the skin a little bit. It makes me feel bad about doing a bacon challenge and attempting a pizza challenge.

It makes me think about where obesity comes from. I never really feel bad about fat people because I figure they did it to themselves. But that processed chemical excrement dressed up as french fries can become a part of you at an early age. It becomes all you know.

There’s this area colloquially called the “Corner of Death” in a poor West Baltimore neighborhood. The “Corner of Death” is the intersection of Cold Spring Lane and Reisterstown Road that has a Burger King, McDonald’s, Cameron’s Seafood, and Tyrone’s Chicken carry-out. It’s a run-down area, so there are no grocery stores within a few miles of every direction.

Day in and day out, all those people have to eat is dog shit. All they have to feed their kids is dog shit. All they have to feed their dogs is dog shit. It’s literally all they have — all they’ve ever had.

It makes sense that they become obese, but it’s insensible how it has become a misunderstood stigma.

PSA commercials are just plain unhappy. They give me unhappy thoughts. If none were made, none of the extreme behavior depicted would happen in the first place. THE COMMERCIALS GIVE PEOPLE IDEAS!