You are perfect unique and beautiful BUT you are fat and have zits so CHANGE!

TRIGGER WARNING:  Talk and videos about dieting and perfection.

If there is one thing that really irks me it is when a product that is dependent on selling me a message of self-dissatisfaction in order to then sell me their product to fix my newly acquired dissatisfaction, uses a self-acceptance message to sell me that product!!!  Okay…that was NOT an easy sentence to read…so let me break it down by offering two recent examples.

In a recent article in The New York Times, there was a story about a new ad campaign for acne cream.  The title of the article, Clean & Clear Videos Dare Not Speak Blemish’s Name, goes on to describe their new sales approach called, See the Real Me, which capitalizes on using the theme of building confidence in teenage girls.  For some reason, the “I can be different and happy with being different” credo that the girls in the See the Real Me ads seem to be professing…does not generalize to their skin.  It is a double message of the most egregious kind.   At the same time they are emphasizing the importance of feeling good about yourself and embracing your uniqueness, they are still issuing the ultimate warning that despite how incredible you may be in so many ways you are still going to be judged if you have a zit on your otherwise wonderful, unique, brilliant, smart, and accomplished self.

“I feel like if I have a zit, no one’s really having a conversation with me, they’re having a conversation with my zit,” an animated teenager says as one spot opens. “I know that they’re looking at it,” says another, before others continue the theme: “Wow, look at that pimple.” “I’m like, hello, I’m right here.” “When I have clear skin, I feel like everybody can see the real me.”

AAAARRRGGGHHH!  This burns me up!  Having a zit IS the real you!!!!!  If someone is obsessing over a pimple on your face, well I hate to be the first one to say this, but they need to get a life.  I mean what additional evidence do you need to see that they are clearly superficial brainwashed people who have been watching way too many ads for how horrific pimples are?! Please, don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying it is healthy to completely ignore acne and not take steps to clean your face and prevent infection and scarring if possible; but the reasons given in these ads are never about health or appropriate hygiene.  Fact is, they are ALWAYS about whether or not we are attractive.  Next to fat, zits seem to be the runner up for reasons to lock yourself up in your house and never show yourself in public until you are perfect…I mean look at all the havoc you are causing?  Look at the grief you are inflicting on others who are forced to look at your fat pimply face?!

Example 2: Weight Watchers® is no newbie at taking the concepts of Health at Every Size® and Diets Don’t Work and weaving them into their recruitment ads for joining Weight Watchers.  They are after all, NOT A DIET but a LIFESTYLE.  Yup, a lifestyle that consists of eating 1200 calories or less a day carefully disguised in calling them points instead of calories. But a new Weight Watchers ad featuring Jessica Simpson is doing an exceptionally effective job hijacking the body-love, body positivity, body acceptance (or whatever you want to call it) message  into her sales pitch for Weight Watchers.

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