One Nation, Under All

Underpants, panties, unders, underwear….whatever you call them, they are about to get a makeover. Our good friends at Proctor and Gamble (a test monitor and a high risk? I don’t get it.) will soon be unleashing $150 million worth of marketing for incontinence products according to AdAge.

With brand names like Envive and Discreet, P&G is going to show us that the future is now, and the future is incontinence. We can hardly wait.

A whole gaggle of celebrities are already pitching incontinence products --- our favorite stars (okay, I don’t know who some of them are – or care) Whoopi Goldberg, Kris Jenner, Marie Osmond, Lisa Rinna, and Kirstie Alley. This must be the baby boomer encore career that people keep talking about! It’s hard to gauge which is worse – the onset of incontinence or the idiotic celebrity ads that are designed to get us to buy the products.

I’m all for frank discussions of some of the ailments boomers are going to face in their later years, but I’m guessing that this onslaught of TV and social media prompts is going to get real annoying, real fast. I doubt that the fact that we are “sharing” our incontinence with the stars we/some of us have come to know and love make the realization that we need these products any less “uncomfortable.” Following the Tweets of Marie Osmond when she shares that she just peed in her pants but it’s OK --- she has on a pair of PeeStoppers --- that’s going to make us all feel better about ourselves.

There’s sharing and then there’s oversharing. If P&G is really going to spend $150 million for incontinence product ads and social media, then it’s a good bet there will be a lot of oversharing. How can a celebrity endorsement make us feel better that we’re losing control of a basic bodily function? Can’t. That’s the short answer. The slightly longer answer is that I don’t care who else is incontinent. I just hope it isn’t me or that it’s many years off. The ailment is embarrassing enough without having to watch famous people embarrass themselves.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Social Media. Oxymoron?

If you’ve read some of the nasty tweets that people have put out there and then had to apologize for, it makes you wonder what is so social about social media? When you can insult an entire race, country or individual in less than 140 characters, maybe it’s just too easy.

Perhaps Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the other social media tools have actually become antisocial media. Trump insults everyone. Louis C.K. insults his fans. Courtney Love…oh, forget it. Hundreds of corporate employees have put Tweets out in the internet-o-sphere and then had to walk them back with major mea culpas if they wanted to keep their jobs.

And celebrity apologies? Take your pick. Oprah has had to eat her words. So has Ashton Kutcher, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Weiner (oy vey, not just words but pictures too), Adam Carolla, Kristen Stewart (sorry I cheated), Hugh Jackman, Spike Lee, Justin Timberlake, Roseanne Barr, Daniel Tosh, Kanye West, and the list goes on and on. If you don’t know some of these names, just trust me. They overshared or said something totally insensitive and idiotic.

But are celebrities really that different from journalists,

politicians and just plain folks when it comes to self-censoring their social media output? Email and social media have just made it so darn convenient to put words, thoughts and pictures out there without a second thought. Could your words be hurtful? Of course. Would be helpful if you reread what you just wrote and thought about whether some people might misunderstand your meaning or find it offensive? You bet. Do the serial Tweeters ever think before they type something and hit the Tweet button? Apparently not, as there are news items each and every day that detail the latest social media train wreck.

One can only guess where the social media phenomenon is headed. I can envision the day when you no longer have to type your thoughts because your computer (or the Mind Reader that replaces it) will know exactly what you’re thinking and blab it out to the whole world. There will be no opportunity for reflection or self-editing. Imagine projectile vomiting of your innermost thoughts if that metaphor is not too gross. If you think that’s what we have now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.