This is such as stupid advert it makes me wince every time I see it. It is a succession of idiots trying to persuade you consume more in the guise of saving the planet.
A succession of media created characterless morons, including an annoying Essexified woman out of Eastenders, explain how sending your perfectly good phone is a good idea for the environment and will help you make some extra money. Worst of all is a stupid spiky-haired effeminate punk with red hair, a goatee beard and a gapped tooth like Terry-Thomas, who says, ‘Soooo last year’. It makes my blood boil.
The worst thing about the advert is that it is completely at odds with the concept of being good for the environment. The first principle of environmental thinking before reuse and recycling is to cut back on the consumption of resources. Surely this would mean don’t buy a new phone because it is, heavens, a year old. Carry on using your phone until it is so outdated that it no longer works. The idea of sending an almost new, perfectly usable phone to be resold is morally wrong.
If you do have a phone that is more than a year-old, then the chances are you won’t be grinning inanely with a cheque because it is worth almost nothing.
Picture the scene: a placid, misty lake in the early morning. A tourist is in a boat watching a Chinese man catching fish using a Cormorant. The birds dives in and catches a fish and brings it to the surface. The man then adds it to an increasing pile of fish that the bird has already caught. The Chinese man looks at the tourist and nods an acknowledgement which conveys, “Yes, I am a smart man. I am doing nothing except standing here and the bird is catching the fish for me.”
To me this advert perfectly captures the relationship between the employers and employees or rather capitalists exploiters and the downtrodden workers.
The Cormorant is an expert at catching fish. On its own it can survive by catching fish. There are plenty of fish. The Chinese man catches the bird, puts a ring around its neck so it can’t eat the food then makes it catch fish for him. He has a surplus of fish and feeds the bird.
It strikes me that the bird is not getting anything out of this relationship. It gets a fish once in a while but it would anyway. In fact, it has to work even harder to catch fish for the man.
What is the subtext of this advert? Is the kind of relationship we have with our banks? We earn the money put it in their bank and they make much more money occasionally feeding use with interest.
This advert is basically saying that banks like to fuck us up the arse with our own money.