This Airline Safety Video Starring All Of The Internet Is A Terrible, Terrible Idea
Nothing inspires confidence in passengers like doge.
Working in advertising must be really tough; I acknowledge that. Day after day these people who once showed promising sparks of creativity are asked to pump out fresh and innovative ideas for brands they couldn’t care less about. All the while there are bigshot CEOs to answer to, a bunch of money lying on each minor decision, and Don Draper — who has cruelly been setting the benchmark for greatness at unconquerable heights and making them all look like assholes for the past eight years.
It’s in this milieu of commercial pressure, professional anxiety and all-round crisis that devil spawn like this is born. In an obvious attempt to target the #youth market and do a #viralz, Delta Airlines — a low-cost American carrier pretty similar to Tiger — have just released the following safety video on YouTube. It features “all the internet” or, more accurately, all the dank memes you actively avoid, and it might legitimately give you a nosebleed.
As if that could get any worse, at the end of the video — which I know none of you got through — it offers the option to “stir”, “chop”, “puree”, “whip”, “grate”, “mix”, “blend” or “crush” the original clip into some terrifying remixed form with an added internet personality.
Look! Here’s the World Record T-Shirt Guy ballooning his way into your brain stem in the form of a life-ruining acid trip:
And here’s the I Like Turtles Kid acting out some deeply repressed childhood trauma you didn’t realise you had until now:
This may be pretty standard fare for the internet and yes, we’re basically making their #viral dreams come true by sharing it, but here’s the crucial thing: THIS IS A FUCKING AIRLINE SAFETY VIDEO. When your entire business rests on the number of people who are willing to trust you with their lives, you probably shouldn’t assault them with nyan cats and dancing babies.
Did anyone even think of that in any point in the no doubt lengthy process it took to make this? Did they not care? Also, is it a genuine attempt to get down with the kids, or a pile of shit coated in ten layers of irony to get people talking about them again? Maybe it’s a glorious world-first kamikaze-style campaign inspired by a brand that simply has nothing left to lose.
Anyone familiar with the stand-up of John Mulaney could make a case for the latter. A joke he made in his 2012 special New In Town seems scarily apt right now:
♪ “Because we’re Delta Airlines and life is a fucking nightmare!”♪