What I Learned from Watching Over 2 Hours of Old Cigarette Commercials

Watching these commercials was actually fascinating, in a terrible sort of way.  When I was younger, well, smoking just seemed so normal.  The commercials only reinforced that fact.  Maybe that was the point of the commercials in the first place.  It also speaks to the influence mass media marketing has had (and continues to have) in our country.  It's as if we're on a quest, on the cheap mind you, to somehow be glamorous, cool, and popular, listening to anyone who can seemingly show us the way.  

In retrospect, it's as if an entire country was caught up in a collective cognitive dissonance, somehow believing that they could inhale burning vegetable matter without any consequences.  It actually goes beyond that when some of the commercials proclaim the number of doctors that use their particular product.  Now it seems naive and stupid, but that conveniently ignores the fact that, in spite of falling numbers...

...we still have a significant number of folks in this country who do smoke.  Just stop into just about local convenience store to get a practical demonstration of this fact. 

Again, I do find the commercials fascinating, but maybe it's the same kind of fascination that sometimes comes with roadkill.  Or a Nickelback video.  In any event, and to be a bit more serious for a moment, I really wish the smoking rate was zero.  None.  Nada.  Zilch.  There are no redeeming qualities associated with smoking, only the very strong possibility of a horrible death.  Granted that we are all going to die one day, but my hope is that it doesn't have to be from literally drowning in your own bodily fluids.

"Hugely difficult thing to post about my mum died 9 weeks ago from lung cancer/copd don’t really know she went in with chest infection was sent home with oxygen and antibiotics found unconscious the next day and never regained proper consciousness but there were moments of clarity, I spent the next three days with her in hospital and she died she basically drowned in her own fluid in front of me and I could do nothing I am obviously very sad but also having horrible flashbacks I don’t know how to move forward..." 

[Citation HERE]

If you are reading this and you smoke, well, please try to quit.  If that doesn't work then try again.  And again.  And again until you are successful.  Life is too short, it's too fragile to throw it away on a broken Madison Avenue promise of glamour and cool.