A reader recoils:
I hate this commercial with a passion. Aside from the creepy brother-sister relationship, it’s nice to know there’s such a dearth of “real coffee” in West Africa.
Or as another puts it:
Do you take incest with your coffee?
Previous Christmas Hathos here.
Another submission:
This is just a collision hathos: the reindeer gay bois, the overdone singing, the urging to enroll in Obamacare … I can’t stop watching. But I don’t want to enroll as much as make sure I get tested for herpes.
Previous Christmas Hathos here.
A reader invites us to “celebrate our Lord’s Birth with these assholes, who set a new standard for Hathos”:
Another sees red:
This absolutely awful Christmas “card” has been making the rounds. Many people think it’s funny and cute, and they’re more interested in the physical attributes of the wife and husband. But at the end of the day, it’s a freaking plug for their new business. Absolutely awful.
Update from a few readers defending the couple:
Wow, some of your readers are real tight asses.
My wife and I watched this and thought it was hilarious and we didn’t give a shit that they plugged their business. One observation I would offer to many of your readers is that it’s easy to find fault in things on the Internet and to criticize. Try just sitting back and enjoying something without trying to pick it apart or make ad hominem attacks about people none of us know personally. I realize that it’s hard to keep quiet, especially when we have the ability to express ourselves in so many different ways. But I think we all (and I’m including myself in this) need to try to be a little more patient, a little more accepting, and a little more tolerant, especially during this time of year.
Another adds:
As a resident of the Research Triangle, I think you are being a little hard on the Holdernesses (Holderni?). First off, on a technical note, the video admits it is a shameless plug – I thought being self aware disqualified one from hathos? Second, Penn is one of the few bearable local anchors to watch in Raleigh-Durham. He is a little hipper and edgier than the standard local news schlock, and he wears his stations perennially low rankings with a degree of resignation and panache. I don’t know that this disqualifies one from a hathos tag, but jeez, some context may help. (Also contextual is the huge HUGE deal that having a movie filmed in RDU was for the area. I think someone who lived it could be forgiven for blowing it out of context).
See all of our Christmas Hathos from years past here.
Since that season is at our throats once again, and since I’m always cranky about it, I thought it might be fun to vent some collective Christmas angst by posting the most hathos-filled Christmas videos that Dish readers love/hate. Remember:
Hathos is the attraction to something you really can’t stand; it’s the compulsion of revulsion.
It might make it all more enjoyable. So let me start the ball rolling with this vintage McDonalds ad from the 1980s.
Now let’s see some serious yuletide hathos, shall we? Let the in-tray rip.
I’m not sure whether to dedicate this to Norman Podhoretz or Max Blumenthal but it is fanfuckingtastic:
Yes, the lyrics contain these immortal rhymes:
So la da di da di, we like to BE FREE
Dancing with Miley
LIVING however we want
This is our home
This is our rules
And we can’t stop
And we won’t stop
Can’t you see it’s we who own the LAND
Can’t you see it we who TAKE A STAND
And we can’t stop
And we won’t stop
We BUILD things
Things don’t BUILD we
Don’t take nothing from JOHN KERRY
According to Caroline Bankoff, the song is an apparent rebuke to Jeffrey Goldberg! Whatever role Friend of the Dish Goldblog had in bringing this about, we thank you. And – bonus hathos! – there’s a hymn to the IDF:
To my home guys here with the big guns
Savin’ Jews from gettin’ all beat up
Remember only God can judge ya
Forget the haters cause somebody loves ya
And everyone in line to make peace
Trying to get a Nobel for peace
We all so fed up here
Getting fed up here, yeah, yeah
Well, we can be grateful to Miley for something.
A quarter-century after the release of Cannibal Tours, Dennis O’Rourke’s documentary about global tourism, Rolf Potts draws a few recent parallels:
Though Cannibal Tours was never meant to be taken as comedy, its more memorable scenes have a cringe-inducing quality that calls to mind the delicious discomfort of watching Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office. In basic narrative terms, the documentary depicts a meandering series of interactions between luxury liner tourists and the Papuans who live in various Sepik River villages. What the film lacks in plot arc, however, it makes up for in awkward tension as it probes the mutual suspicion and misunderstanding that arises when wealthy outsiders visit once-primitive communities in a far-flung corner of the world.
Potts describes the movie’s “most iconic moment” (seen above):
As the sweaty white folks wander around snapping photos and haggling for souvenirs, a handsome young Papuan tribesman speaks to an offscreen interviewer, earnestly explaining what he thinks of the outsiders. “When the tourists come to our village, we are friendly towards them,” he says, his words translated in the subtitles. “They like to see all the things in the village. We accept them here.” While he’s saying this, an elderly German woman wearing high-hitched khaki trousers and silver horn-rimmed spectacles creeps into the background, fumbles with the settings on her camera, and — oblivious to what the tribesman is saying — snaps a picture of him before scuttling back out of the frame. Upon initial viewing, this interaction seems to perfectly encapsulate the strained guest-host dynamic portrayed in Cannibal Tours: even as the Sepik native takes pains to affirm the humanity of tourists, the tourist’s first instinct is to treat him like scenery.
Watch the full documentary here, if you must.
Noah Rothman flags a “fabulously cringe-inducing” series of ads to raise awareness about the ACA among young people. And no, it’s not a parody:
Got Insurance is a project of the Thanks Obamacare campaign, created by the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education to educate everyone about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.
Limbaugh bait after the jump:
