I have not gone more than six hours without getting some kind of text, email, or mail advertisement about the upcoming presidential election. If we throw in general online advertisements, then I haven’t even gone an hour (and I know I should start spending less time online. It’s a difficult habit to break, but I’m getting there). Sure, both of these numbers exclude time I’m asleep, though even that time doesn’t change much if I include my dreams since I still get political advertisements invading those as well. Which is a wild thing to be happening considering I’ve still never once dreamed of being on the computer or using my cell phone. It’s mostly billboards in my dreams, but I also still get mail and hear people talking about the upcoming election, so I really can’t escape it except when I’m sleeping dreamlessly and you don’t really experience that passage of time so I refuse to count it. I probably wouldn’t mind as much if every single one of them didn’t assign absolutely dire and earth-shattering consequences to voting for whatever person the advertisement doesn’t want me to vote for. I already know that this election will have dire consequences and it’s abundantly clear that both results will probably have dire consequences because this is the US I’m talking about and we haven’t had an election that wasn’t choosing the shiniest of two turds (to quote an Epic Rap Battle of History that gets stuck in my head every election cycle) in longer than my living memory. I mean, I still remember when it was controversial to run attack ads at all and when people began to comment on how often attack ads showed up, but now that seems to be all there is. Endless, direly worded attack ads that are also attacking me.
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Sensitivity Assessment
I clicked on the link in the email and watched the video message load. It was an advertisement for some kind of new electric toothbrush and I stifled a yawn as a parade of cheerful white woman in their late twenties marveled at how clean their perfect teeth felt.
After it ended, I watched it a few more times. Once I’d gotten everything I could, I typed up my notes, stuck them into a reply email, and sent it off. A few minutes later, my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“What do you mean ‘it needs less white women.”
“Fewer. You have almost two dozen actors and they’re all white women. It needs some diversity.”
“The agency sent us these women. What the hell where we supposed to do?”
I shrugged, shifting the phone so I could use both my hands again. “I don’t know, Shannon. You wanted a sensitivity assessment and I gave it to you.”
“In the most unprofessional way possible.” Shannon was pissed and I held back the urge to sigh.
“Did you want me to pretend it was fine? I answered everything according to our guidelines and there’s nothing in my response I haven’t sent to you a dozen times already.”
“Whatever, Kent. I can’t do this right now. I’ve got to go talk to the director and let him know we’ve got to reshoot the entire commercial.”
“You called me.”
I imagined Shannon slamming the phone down and smiled. She got so angry every time I sent her the feedback she requested. I probably could have been a little less blunt in my email, but she was just so much fun to wind up.