Doing it Wrong: The Clap Machine of Despair

In late June of 1982 I was invited to a birthday sleep-over at Kyle Eubansky’s house where I saw my first “adult”-style video. Prior to late June of 1982, my mother had done the admirable job of convincing me that “adult” movies were movies where people sat at kitchen tables and talked about their jobs. “Yeesh,” I said.

I bring this up not to titillate: you’re better than that, and you deserve better than that (and anyway I don’t remember much of it because I left immediately for home once it became clear that that one lady was not a scientist and no one else seemed to respect the sanctity of the Bathing Suit Area at all). I bring it up to set the stage for the soundtrack to today’s Doing it Wrong video:

That’s some awful music — if we’re just going to loosely throw the term “music” around. It took me a while to recover from the flashback (“I…don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to use a clipboard. And why is he taking off his tie?”). After forty-five seconds you’ll wonder why you feel like you’ve been listening to this music for the last two days. The relentless clap machine ticking off the seconds of your life you’ll never get back; the drowsy synth noise that you CAN’T LET LULL YOU TO SLEEP because you’ll never wake up and the clowns will eat you. After the 1:10 of this song finishes (three years later), you’ll want someone to hold and comfort you — but you’ll feel far too dirty. This is also the music that Coco has to strip to when she’s tricked by that porno director into thinking he can make her a movie star towards the end of the movie Fame.

And we haven’t even gotten to the message yet.

The problem isn’t just the bad-touch feeling the music inspires that you’ll carry with you the rest of your days. The problem is the bad consumer advice doled out over the minute and change of the clip.

The clip leaves the viewer thinking that the way to deal with any debt is simply to say stop calling. “You will be amazed at how soon the calls will stop and you will be able to sleep better at night.”

But the debt still exists.

Videos like these administer the absolutely wrong “cure” for the problem: deny the debt, and it will go away. Advice like this doesn’t actually help consumers at all, and can even harm them in the future. Just because the calls and letters stop does not necessarily mean that the debt isn’t waiting somewhere like a time bomb waiting to go off.

Now, I’m off for a Silkwood shower. Excuse me.