I hardly watch any television, maybe about 5 hours a week, which is usually not a thing to note. It’s relevant, though, when I talk about a particularly obnoxious commercial I’ve run across rather frequently in the past few weeks.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find the exact commercial on YouTube, but a similar commercial from the same advertising line can be seen below… I found a YouTube clip of the commercial and linked to it below.
At this point you probably recognize the commercial, but I’ll elaborate for those who don’t.
-”Chad” representing Alltel, is confronted by the “Nerds” and instructed to get into the back of the van.
-Rather than containing the ridiculous and stupid pinching segment, that segment is cut from the commercial.
-The next segment has “Chad” asking, “So what level Dungeon Master are you guys?”
-The “Nerds” reply, “Dungeon Masters don’t have levels!” and high five.
Like a good victimized minority, I object to the characterization of D&D players/ Tabletop role-players in such a negative fashion. It’s long past time to stop sitting down and accepting pop culture characterizations of role-playing game enthusiasts as ugly, unhygienic, socially inept people. It’s rather ridiculous that any major corporation will play into such a tired and inaccurate stereotype as part of an ad campaign. What’ll we see next, a “Trail of Tears” ad campaign with Native Americans who aren’t on Alltel’s cell phone network being forced to leave their homes for “coverage reservations”?
Not only should Alltel be ashamed for negatively stereotyping gamers this way, but let’s face it, their attempt to portray themselves (using the proxy of “Chad”) as “hip” and “cool” in the face of those other “D&D nerds” falls flat on its face. Regurgitating thirty year old stereotypes isn’t “hip,” it’s passe as hell. Get your advertising team off of the quaaludes and force them to come up with something relevant to the new millenium. Videogames are the biggest entertainment medium period. Over six million people play World of Warcraft alone. Guess what? If you’re playing tabletop games in this day and age it’s precisely because of the social element of being able to interact with people, face to face.
Time to grow up, Alltel. This isn’t high school anymore, where you can be part of some cool clique just by virtue of insulting other people’s hobbies. A group of people sitting around a table telling stories isn’t some sort of activity that deserves scorn, though nor does it deserve praise. It’s just one of many things people do to entertain themselves.
Henceforth, I call for all humans and demi-humans to boycott Alltel products until such a time as hostilities cease and reparations are made for this injustice.
Update: Here’s a thread on the Wizards of the Coast forums which talks about this Alltel commercial as well.
Update 2: I also found this reaction to the Alltel commercial on someone’s Livejournal. All I have to say is that I agree entirely.
“Henceforth, I call for all humans and demi-humans”
Neeeeeeeeeerd