Thursday, December 8, 2016

To Xfinity and beyond Speechless

Gotta make an exception here, friends. While I typically only post and comment on content that hates on men and dads, I was shocked that one of the country's largest cable and internet providers decided it was a good idea to hate on grandparents this holiday season. Was this supposed to be funny? I didn't laugh. Actually, it made me really emotional. We lost my Opa back in 2007, 2 months before Christmas. We lost my Grandpa Reed just one week before Christmas in 2014. I can't be the only person in my family that feels really sad when I see "Grandpa's chair" in the living room on Christmas Eve, empty.

Xfinity opens up this commercial with grandparents reading tweets from their grandchildren. "Entering the gates of Hell, aka Grandma's house. No shows or wifi". "Going off the grid for a while, pray for me". Damn, kid. You mean to tell me, you haven't been able to get your parents to pay for unlimited data for you yet? And I always thought this was the "entitled" generation. How *do* you function? One set of grandparents, clearly offended and hurt by reading these tweets, decide to get Xfinity by Comcast. (do I even want to address the fact that these 70 yr old+ adults are even on Twitter? Is YOUR grandma on Twitter? Mine isn't)
Considering all of the sets of grandparents were reading from the same phone, I guess we should assume that Comcast provided them with smartphones and had them read what their grand-kids were saying? Like what Jimmy Fallon does for "mean celebrity tweets"? Anyway, they get a crash course by the friendly Comcast installer on how to use Wifi, Netflix, and even the cool voice-activated remote control. The remote is the "XR11", just in case you were wondering. If you don't have it, you ought to upgrade.(Seriously, though).

Soon, the grand-kids are at the front door. Adorned with knitted hats, gloves, scarves (likely made by Grandma), they walk in. The grandfather lights up, and shows them how he can talk into the remote and say "Keep the change, you filthy animal" (which actually MAY be my favorite quote from any movie, considering Home Alone is my favorite movie, followed by a close second, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York), and Home Alone starts playing on the television. The kids are able to communicate with the outside world, since they have wifi. Everyone is happy. Good job, grandparents. You have successfully fed into this generation's insatiable appetite for constant streaming.

How about this, asshole kids(in the commercial)... talk to your grandparents.You can even use more than 140 characters at a time. Talk about what's happening in school, sports, your job. Let them grill you about your love life, even let them get your name wrong a few times: it doesn't mean they love you any less. Watch old family movies or spend time making new memories to record, just get your nose out of your phone! One year at Christmas your grandparents will be gone, and you can watch all of the Netflix that you want. Let me know how Netflix hugs back or shares memories from the Christmas of 44, 78, or 1983.

***I should note, the commercial below is the "long" version that is only available online. I couldn't find the tv edit which is considerably shorter. It left out the teenage girl taking a picture of her grandmother's old black and white picture and posting it to Instagram. Or, using a filter to make her grandma have "no wrinkles". Regardless of Comcast's lame attempt to make this commercial "sentimental", I still found it offensive. Let grandparents do their thing. If they only want to have basic cable, let them. If they think Wifi is a new Chinese take-out place, let them think that.  If they don't know how to work the remote for their shitty Zenith tv from 1992, remind them how to use it. Shield them from the modern technologies that so many of us use and take for granted every day. Why? They are fine without them. Their generation fought in WWII, they gave up stuff to use as scrap metal, they survived the Great Depression. I promise you, if they don't know how to use Snapchat, they will get by just fine. Can OUR generation survive a Christmas without wifi? Let's try.