Tuesday, April 03, 2012

My favorite PSA


I've posted this before but it seems appropriate to post again.

5 comments:

Jordan said...

The problem with all anti-smoking PSAs and messages is that they emphasize the health risks rather than the addiction.

This came up on Horrorthon once before: a whole bunch of us talking about how "anyone who smokes and doesn't know the dangers at this point is just stupid etc." and then I said, "Yeah, except that you notice that we've got a conversation of seven people, all of whom are 'smart' enough to know the health risks, and we're all ex-smokers?"

It's not that cigs will kill you -- everyone knows that (even Don Draper as we know). It's that everyone seriously underestimates how fucking impossible it is to stop. You're dealing with the only substance on earth that's been chemically adjusted in a lab to make it more addictive -- you can't even say that about heroin.

If I were in charge of anti-smoking campaigns that would be my angle: "YOU CAN'T STOP." Let's see David Lynch and Darren Aronofsky make commercials about that.

Catfreeek said...

It truly is the worst addiction, the only reason I didn't cave in the last time I quit was because I didn't want to ever have to go through quitting again. Now I loath the smell of cigarettes and nasty butt breath.

JPX said...

$10 per pack would be enough for me to quit. I'm too much of a cheapskate to start that habit.

Jordan said...

JPX, no it wouldn't. (I realize you're being witty and I'm being too serious, but I take this subject very seriously). If you've borrowed money to buy cigarettes (but not food); if you've walked fifteen blocks through a scary neighborhood to the one place that's open in the middle of the night because you ran out; if you've stood outside a restaurant three times during one dinner just to smoke; if you've bummed cigarettes from strangers; if you've picked half-smoked cigarettes out of public ashtrays and lit them, you know what I mean. (I've done all those things. My last cigarette was May 24 1995.)

Octopunk said...

My favorite part of this PSA is the random room full of machinery they've parked the droids in and the generic mechanical task 3PO is fucking up at the beginning.

Salem's Lot 1979 and Salem's Lot 2024

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