This Invisalign Teen Commercial is Bugging Me, and Also: Why Does Hulu Plus Even Have Commercials?
This commercial has been bugging me lately. The only commercials I ever see anymore are
on Hulu Plus, and can we just take a moment to ask ourselves—WHY ARE THERE
COMMERCIALS IN HULU PLUS? It’s a paid
service, just like Netflix (in fact, aren’t they the same price?), and yet Hulu
Plus makes money from us (the consumers), and from advertisers by running these
commercials. How is no one calling them
on that?
Yes, I understand, we are paying for the privilege of being
able to watch television shows the very next day after they air, and that is
awesome, but it seems a little scammy to me that Hulu is able to charge me,
then hold me captive through ads, and also, to show me the same ad so many
times that I really have no choice but to start mocking it.
Here’s the latest one they have running in a loop, and it’s
started to bug me more every time I see it.
The premise is: identical twins,
both need braces, one of them gets Invisalign Teen, because clearly their mom likes one of them more than the other one. Let’s watch.
Um, ok—so, first of all, by the end of the commercial, you
kind of feel so bad for the twin with the metal braces, you kind of just want
her last line to be “My sister’s a bitch!” in that sing-songy voice, because
that’s totally how they are setting it up.
I had metal braces and was banned from popcorn (“I love popcorn!” says
the bitchy sister), had to watch what I ate (“I don’t!”), and had to wear a
headgear (“Not me!”), so by the end of the commercial, I actually don’t want to
know more about Invisalign. I just want to smack the obnoxious twin for being
so mean to her sister. And really, who
are the parents of these girls? How was
this decision made? It really seems
like the longest punishment that mean parents have ever concocted, having two
identical twins and giving only one of them braces., and letting the one with Invisalign Teen mock her sister at
every available opportunity. Am I to
discern from this that Invisalign Teen has made this girl into an unfeeling
shrew? That is not something I would
want if I were a parent. Or—are we to
infer that, even though they are identical, one of the teens had teeth that
were too crooked to be treated by the magical Invisalign? Again, confusing. I don’t get making one of the girls look uglier
than the other. Don’t they teach you
that basic thing in “How to Parent Identicals” class or something?
Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned, because I had those
metal braces, and I paid in pain , cut lips, unattractiveness, and general teen
angst to get the straight teeth I have today.
Braces hurt, dude, and during the years that you have them, you want to
take them off. I kind of feel like with
Invisalign, you have the option to keep taking the aligners out when they hurt,
and that is just not going to work.
I guess what I’m saying is, the only thing this commercial
accomplishes for me is to wish some metal braces pain on Ms. Invisalign Teen,
and I’m pretty sure that was not the outcome the advertising agency
envisioned. Besides, aren’t Invisalign
braces the “second chance but not as good” braces for adults with professional
jobs or for people who had braces when they were kids but were not disciplined
enough to wear their retainers like their orthodonists told them to?
I feel like, if you’re a kid and you need braces, just get
braces, for God’s sake. The Invisalign system seems kind of like the retainers that you get after braces (not real braces), and I don’t get why they are marketing them to
kids.
This concludes my Invisalign rant. See what Hulu Plus is turning me into? I wouldn't have even noticed this if these commercials weren't inside a PAID SERVICE.