Lady sees red

[j4]

This article advert on Netmums made me so furious I had to have a rant here. Let's take it line by line:

Sometimes it’s hard work just looking at celebrities on the red carpet.
Wow, if that's your idea of hard work, you need to get out more. Tell you what, we'll start gently: I'll do the celeb-watching for you while you come over here & do the

Comments

[venta]

Surely the take-home lesson for us all here is "don't read netmums" ;)

(I have no idea - maybe it's also full of useful stuff. Most of things I've heard people talking about have sounded pretty underwhelming.)

Also - following a great internet tradition of seizing on the least relevant part of your post - I quite like Special K.

[atreic]

I was going to say that. The chocolate and strawberry one is yummy, and contains nearly as many calories as most breakfast cereals. It's just because they market it a) with skimmed milk b) with tiny portion sizes and c) as the only thing you should eat for two meals of the day that it's a weight loss food at all, really.

[rmc28]

I love you and your brilliant demolishing.

[fanf]

Ditto.

Also, since XKCD reminded me of it a week and a half ago, this ad is obviously based on pickup-artist negging. They must be trying to shaft you .

Also also. Special K. Stupidest diet food ever. It's entirely sugar and refined carbs which are the absolute worst things to eat when trying to lose weight!

[vinaigrettegirl]

The reposte in that xkcd might do well as a response on Netmums. I am so glad netmums didn't exist when I was a new/ish mother because I would have broken my then-precious-and-only Powerbook 160 pounding responses via dialup into the aether...

[tigerfort]

My desk had to ask me to stop reading half-way through; apparently my head was giving it bruises.

Also
Could you clarify at exactly what point I'm supposed to feel despair for not looking like "celebrities"?

I think the answer is "whenever you're not very very scared". It's much easier to sell people things they don't need or want if you can make them scared or despairing. The proportion of the commercial world that appears to make money by brutalising people and then telling them "buy this to feel better" depresses me. I just wish there was something I could do about it other than eat chocolate.

[rmc28]

I just wish there was something I could do about it other than eat chocolate.

Eat really good chocolate that's not advertised horribly?

[khalinche]

Top quality ranting there, ma'am!

[bellinghman]

And it's Special K.

Which is high sugar cardboard. It's got about as much real claim to be healthy for you as, oh, I dunno, Coca Cola.

Seriously, there are some cereals which make a healthy breakfast, at least compared to a grilled full English, but some are actively 'bad' (Coco Pops? Healthy for kids? Yeah, I mean NO!), and others which use pure blandness to hide a salt and sugar level that is shameful.

(I recommend Fuzzy Pink Niven's Law: Never waste calories. Special K is a total waste of both calories and salt allowance - for the same amount of those, you could eat something nice.)

I wouldn't mind so much if Special K wasn't promoted as 'a slimming aid'. But since it is, it should always be pointed out that it's not one at all. It's all down to the advertising of the product, of which this is a particularly obnoxious example.

(As for your main rant, I shall leave that untouched in its perfection.)