Earlier this evening, as I was doing my daily 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer and watching a rerun of Degrassi: The Next Generation (don't hate, you know you're also wondering when Spinner and Holly J are gonna hook up), I spied a commercial that worried me.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, since commercials (and television in general) tend to be frankly terrifying: we have the Bump-It hair-styling device for women wishing to capture the lost days when the Beehive hairdo was considered attractive, we have the Sham-Wow for men who think that headsets are necessary in advertising, and we have Oxy-Clean, for men and women who are addicted to methamphetamines and like stuff to be really clean (too soon?). Now we also have the Big Top cupcake, for kids who just can't get enough cupcakes.
According to this ad, traditional cupcake-sized cupcakes don't cut it anymore. Kids find them disappointing. Moms find them embarrassing. Neighbors find them insulting. But with the Big Top cupcake, you can be the envy of the universe by showing up at parties with THE WORLD'S BIGGEST CUPCAKE. I mean, this thing is the size of a well-developed child's HEAD, and I can prove this by directing you to the commercial itself, in which the Big Top cupcake is shown next to an actual well-developed child's head. I am not clear as to whether or not the Big Top cupcake qualifies as a cupcake or as a cake. It's my belief that the defining characteristic of a cupcake is its smaller size in comparison to actual cakes, but I, as we all know, am no culinary expert.
This commercial also explores a broad range of juvenile acting capacity. In one scene, the young lady on stage right is ecstatic at the sight of her Big Top cupcake, while the young man on stage left seems to be vaguely embarrassed and wondering how on Earth his mother coerced him into doing this lame shit when he could be at home playing Wii Bowling.
The bottom line is, I cannot help be frustrated by Americans' fixation on size, junk food, exploiting children, and promoting childhood obesity, all of which are embodied in the Big Top cupcake. Don't get me wrong, I love cupcakes just as much as the next person. But is there any reason why a cupcake has to be so HUGE? Can't you just invest in a cake if you want that much cake-ish, frosting-y goodness? What the hell kind of lame-ass gimmick is this?
When the upcoming generation of kids becomes so fat that they have to be rolled out of their beds, encased in circus tents instead of clothing, and elevated out of the house via crane in order to get to school, I'll know who to blame. Damn you, Big Top cupcakes! Damn you, societal pressures to compete with the Joneses! Damn you, size-does-matter-propaganda! Damn you, Billy Mays! (Wait, what?)
