In advertising, few campaigns find their way out the door without client mandated testing. Sometimes the testing is justified, like pharmaceutical companies testing a much-hyped drug to ensure that moms aren’t delivering babies with flippers. Other times testing is just plain unnecessary and supersedes common sense, like a recent study to determine if texting while driving is dangerous (duh). Great, now there are twelve people in intensive care to prove a point that the dumbest asshole in the world already knew. Weight loss pill pushers employ the same useless tests. These irresponsible pseudo-pharmacists bombard us with “testing” results that feature ambiguously scientific-looking graphs accompanied by dramatically contrasting before and after pictures. These shady-ass techniques leave the pathetically gullible among us mulling “Gee, if that product can transform that gelatinous heifer into a Giselle look-alike, I’ll bet it can help get rid of this extra skin under my chin that resembles a vagina.” Sure it’ll give you seizures, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, heart attack and stroke, but check out those glutes! Now, you may ask, how things as obviously dangerous as texting while driving, or magic weight loss pills gain enough traction to warrant testing? I'll tell you how. The same way the story about Richard Gere shoving a gerbil up his ass gained traction in my high school. Dumbasses talking to other dumbasses. My point is, in America, there is no idea so patently absurd that it can't undergo some unnecessary (or worse, crooked) test, catch on and eventually take over, like crabgrass or Crocs. So to the executives bent on testing their latest "cure-all", I offer this deal: I’ll buy your weight-loss pills when you start selling the kind of pills that make me enjoy electronic music and think glow sticks are the most mezmerizing inventions of all time.
