“Why Are You Makin’ It Complicated?!...It’s Easy!”

Warning: This post may offend all those that are (1) devoid of a sense of humor; (2) uncomfortable with the use of well-crafted hyperbole; or (3) overly sensitive to the plight of the undereducated and their misguided attempts at self-improvement.

To fully understand this post, please follow the link below and watch this sublimely eloquent and thoroughly persuasive advertisement for Everest College:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZipLIoRqm8&feature=related

If you have ever felt lost, I am confident that after having reveled in the genius of this stalwart life-coach you are now found. I don’t know about everyone else out there, but before I saw this commercial I did not have a five year plan, the future seemed bleak and scary, I didn’t know what direction my life should take…now I do.

Before everyone starts thinking I’m uppity, I would like to say that I am sure Everest College is a fine institution. Furthermore, I respect anyone who pursues an education and I am certainly NOT an academic snob who looks down on a person for attending community/online college. That having been said, it’s not the message being offered (get an education) that I find ridiculous—it’s the messenger and the method of delivery. To elucidate my position, I have enumerated several qualms with the aforementioned advertisement:

Qualm 1

Call me crazy, but as a general rule I try not to take career advice from anyone wearing a sideways baseball hat. People who insist on maintaining a drunken frat-boy persona by cleverly tweaking the angle of their hat are morons. I’m not sure if this guy is trying to rebel against an overly burdensome, straight-laced and pernickety society by intentionally looking like a slouch, or if he was cool in high school and just hasn’t been able to let the dream die. Either way, I’m hesitant to blindly follow the academic admonitions of a person who, by twisting his hat, has marked himself with the international symbol for “tool.”

Qualm 2

For me, general rule number two includes questioning the validity of any career advice given by anyone preaching to me at night in what may or may not be “da hood.” I’m not in marketing, but if I were to put together a commercial for Everest College or any institute of higher learning, I would not use as a backdrop a neighborhood reminiscent of where one might acquire fake Prada bags, hot Rolexes, and adult herbs. Again, just me, but I might film the commercial in a school, at a place of business, or in a beautiful park on a sunny afternoon—you know, somewhere I might want to be instead of somewhere I would only find myself if my car broke down while picking up a hooker.

Qualm 3

Has this guy even been to college? If so, is this what I can expect from an Everest College education? I have to assume that as the spokesperson, this guy exemplifies what it means to be an Everest College graduate. I’ll concede that perhaps he received superior marks on his capstone research paper delving into the psychological degradation associated with hat-cocking, but would emulating this man really lead to success?

Qualm 4

For this one you may have to watch the video again and pay particular attention to the body language of this silver-tongued salesman. Is it just me, or does he roll his eyes as he turns away from the camera? Where does this guy get off being disgusted with me? By the end of this commercial not only have I been lambasted for wasting my life, evidently sitting on a couch relentlessly talking on the phone, but by the end, this man can no longer stomach looking into the face of blinding incompetence, aka, the viewer. Fully exasperated and no longer able to feign patience or even mask his broiling condescension for television viewers like myself, he rolls his eyes and turns away having accepted as fact that we viewers are perpetual losers lacking the tenacity to reach for the phone and change our life. I understand it’s this man’s job to motivate us to allow Everest College to help us achieve heights which we could not attain alone, but I’m not sure that this guy has a sufficiently impressive resume to treat all of us humble, late-night television viewers with pure, unadulterated contempt.

In short, despite this man’s undeserved hubris, he’s right; I am making it complicated when it is, in fact, easy. I’ve spent an undisclosed amount of time writing a post in defiance of this commercial, when next time I could just change the channel…but will I? No. Complaining is just too much fun!