Badly timed commercials and annoying, crappy commercials are not where the money is at.
Your product is what the money avoids.
Yet, so many companies keep making these inane advertisements.
And then whine and cry and wonder how they went out of business.
Redditor unfortunatelyalive7 wanted to hear about what things we all refuse to buy because of the advertising, so they asked:
"What is something you’ll never purchase simply because of how much you hate the commercial for it?"
"Any ad on my phone or in a mobile game that causes me to have to either: press X to close it more than once, automatically opens up the app store, or is longer than 15 seconds."
- midnight_to_midnight
Phone Where Is It GIF by Specks of Dust Giphy
"I keep getting ads like 'We messed up. We're so sorry. We made this amazing, incredible product, and we put it on sale,' or 'You don't wanna buy this product, it's too awesome," and I will never give those companies a chance."
- Chihuahuapocalypse
'Kinda similar, but I got an ad before the tariffs took effect that was pretty much 'last chance to get at this price before tariffs force us to raise it" for a supposedly American-manufactured product. Planning on raising the price before they even know if they have to or not really irked me."
- hogcranker42
"Ironically, any ad that repeats itself on any of the streaming platforms. Sure, there’s brand recognition. But now you’ve annoyed the viewer so much that we’re averse to your brand and product."
- HAD7
"I hate ads. But I hate the same ad over and over and over. My wife and I would launch into the start of this car ad that played countless times over a few weeks whenever we watched Hulu. As soon as the show cut to black, we knew what was about to come up!"
- the_vault-technician
"Anything that dials up the disgusting eating, crunching noises, or has the actor moaning about how good it is and mumbling with their mouths full. Any soda and that emphasises the performative 'AHHHHHH' after the sip."
- alicat2308
"I love Taco Bell so much, but all of their advertising in recent years is basically just close-up shots of people’s mouths as they’re eating. I f**king hate whoever is making these choices."
- Barfignugen
"Not really a purchase, but the ChatGPT ad that has a couple with a dude trying to impress a girl with his cooking... and the song they play is 'Fool' by Perfume Genius. A song that is literally about being cheated on by a partner you trusted and thought you were building a life with. Like, you're allowed to read the lyrics before you pick the music."
- malachiconstant76
"Anything from Brand Power. 'Try this super common dish soap!' and it's always a blonde woman with an unnerving voice sounding like she's chewing the TR sound in 'try.'"
- angryaxolotls
Clean Water GIF by Rotary International Giphy
"Lume because I cannot stand that loud, obnoxious 'as an OBGYN' woman yelling about how she sweats buckets. Or anything she says."
"Whatever that woman with long blonde stringy hair is stapling onto her hair and yells SHUT-UP!'
- Cinnamon2017
"It disgusts me because it’s clearly preying on people who are disproportionately insecure/concerned about their scent, while simultaneously going on, 'society tries to make women feel bad about their smell! :(' as if their commercials don’t exist to create insecurities."
- anonymoussunflower7
"Toilet paper with the bears."
- xx_HotShott_xx
"Especially the one where it shows the teenage bear’s butt with little bits of toilet paper stuck all over it."
"That is just so unnecessarily disgusting."
"But if you remember where they always talked about ‘less is more?' My brother, the plumber, told me they have to do that because if you use too much Charmin, it might clog up your septic tank. I never buy it for that reason, but I also find the commercials ridiculous."
- Radiant-Pomelo-3229
"Cadillac had a super douchy commercial where a fat balding middle-aged dude talked about never taking time off and working 'harder' than everyone else so you can buy a plastic shitbox masquerading as a luxury car."
"It's not that I was triggered or offended, I just about had to file an insurance claim because my eyes rolled so hard into the back of my head. It was like what the kids would call 'cringe boomerisms' merged and formed a boomer singularity, and I was being pulled beyond the event horizon. All of this in my living room, without my consent."
"You want me to buy your car? Show me real values."
- GreyhoundOne
"Probably going to get hate for this, but the St. Jude’s, SPCA, or Humane Society of America. Any of those ones that play the sad music and try to pull at your heartstrings. I swear those commercials are 3 plus minutes, and they always play when I’m listening to music or something on YouTube. They always seem to play right when I’m in the middle of something or walk away, and I can’t skip the ad, so I’m stuck listening to a depressing commercial, and it pisses me off."
- MeatScience1
"Liberty Mutual. What a lousy theme! I would also say any medication commercial that does not tell you what it is for. 'Ask your doctor about ZeZeZum.' The woman, seeing this, asks her doctor, who says 'That's for prostate symptoms. Women don't have prostates.'"
- kittendollie13
"Liberty Liberty Liiiberty."
- oNOCo
"Safelite. Hate those commercials."
- dosamaam
" Funny coincidence, but Safelite's jingle is short, and I don't find it all that annoying, and it has actually become my earworm dewormer. When I struggle with phrases, jingles, and songs stuck in my head, I sing this one once, and it fixes everything. No clue why, but I'm thankful for it."
"That said, I can't remember the last time I actually watched one of their commercials, and I have no plan on using their service... To me, it's just the tool that clears invasive soundbytes."
- V01DC41T
"Recently: The McPickle sandwich."
"I actually quite like pickles, so I like the idea, but the commercial is people mashing the 'extra pickles' button at McDonald's and showing it on receipts and then being like 'we heard you like pickles...'"
"People aren't hitting the extra pickle button because they want a million pickles on one sandwich. They're pressing it because you're stingy as f**k and don't put enough condiments on your food."
- IJourden
"Jewelry from Jared Jewelers. 'He went to Jared.' Ugh! Hated those ads. They were the worst leading up to Christmastime."
- OakandIvy_9586
"Yes, all jewelry commercials make everyone think women only want overpriced jewelry, and that s**t sinks into our subconscious as a kid, and we grow up thinking that’s what we should want."
"Also, fragrance commercials at Christmas time."
- Clever-crow
Visualize Video Game GIF by Dr. Donna Thomas Rodgers Giphy
I agree with all of these things.
I can't stand those gaming ads.
They freeze my computer far too often.
And jewelry stores will always have a touch of the outdated going on.
If I can't skip the commercial, I go into the other room until it's over.
And the people waiting there for us may be familiar.
Isn't it the craziest thing to run into people we already know or are somehow connected to in lands far away?
Is that fate? Destiny? Or just an oddity of life?
It happens more than one would expect.
Redditor jredd7605 wanted to hear about the times people randomly saw someone they knew in an unexpected location, so they asked:
"What’s the farthest place in the world from your home that you ran into somebody that you know?"
"Grew up in Ohio. Ran into my high school history teacher in Rome. (Ironically, in the Coliseum, and yes, he taught world history)."
- Raeliya
rome GIF Giphy
"Hung out with some people in a hostel in Barcelona. A year later randomly ran into them at the Grand Canyon.
- schamburglar
"I once met some guys in Barcelona and then saw them outside a bar in Amsterdam a week later. I guess this one isn’t completely crazy since we were both traveling around Europe at the time, but it seemed like an insane coincidence."
- 2ndChanceCharlie
"I’m Brazilian. I was living in Barcelona and met a bunch of Brazilian guys who lived in London during a New Year's party. Two months later, I was walking by the most random street in Paris (not touristy at all) and bumped into him."
- lthomazini
"Met someone in the UK who knew my family, and we randomly saw each other again on a beach in Ghana 💀."
- WoodenRevenue9919
"I guy I knew from college was on vacation in Europe and met a girl from China. They hung out for a bit and went their separate ways. A few years later, he was on vacation in South America and ran into her again. They are now married."
- rogercopernicus
"That sounds like the universe accidentally hit copy-paste on your life. Crazy how the world feels huge till you bump into someone from your past in a totally random beach thousands of miles away. Makes me wonder if we're all just living in a small town disguised as a planet."
- Accurate-Bus-4149
"Bumped into my middle school bus driver on a night train in Kyoto. Instant detention flashbacks."
- silver_grain_dust
"Strangely, my situation was also with my school bus driver. All 4 years of high school, I had the same driver; she was awesome. Fast-forward to me traveling from Massachusetts back to my hometown in New Mexico at 22 years old, and while in St. Louis, I'm standing in line to change BUSES AT A GREYHOUND STATION, and my BUS DRIVER was right in front of me. We were both heading back home. Rode next to each other the whole time. Longest bus ride we had ever shared, and we had shared a lot!"
- goodest-noodle
"At age 30, I ran into my 3rd-grade best friend, more than 2000 miles from where we last saw one another. At age 11, he moved, and we neither heard nor saw one another for 20+ years."
"I joined the Army, then 4 years into my term, Amir walks into my unit, and it's my time to explain that I know him from our past. My mother was the school's photographer. The next day, I show up for work with a photo that Mom sent me overnight. It was a class photo from fifth grade where Amir and I were in the front row with our arms draped around one another. We don't hang out anymore, but we had 5 years in our 20s and 30s to hang out as adults on the other side of the continent that we met on. Small world for sure."
- Javajax1
"Not know directly, but I met a guy who went to high school with my sister at a house party in Shanghai."
"We grew up in rural Nova Scotia."
- Milligoon
China Holiday GIF by Virgin Atlantic Giphy
"My sister and her family from Florida stayed in the room across the hall from my Mom and me, from the Midwest, in a hotel in Los Angeles. We didn't know of each other then, as my sister had been given up for adoption, and it was years later when we found each other and connected that we found out we stayed at the same hotel at the same time years earlier, and probably passed each other in the hall, not knowing. Gives me goosebumps thinking about it, how close we were."
- OkBee3439
"Not me, but one time in Australia, I was organizing a group of people to the free Symphony Under the Stars concert in Sydney's Domain. I invited my colleague from work, and she invited her friend from South Africa. They were walking through a group of around 100,000 people when someone ran up to the person from South Africa. They were friends from school and didn't know that each other was now living in Australia."
- flingebunt
"Oklahoma and South Korea. I was stationed in Oklahoma, and I got a kitten when hubs deployed for Desert Storm. I was in too, and the very long hours my poor kitten was alone for around 14 hours a day. I found a nice military family who took my cat. Two assignments later, in South Korea, walking down this small 'mall,' a guy walking toward me, I recognized his eyes."
"I stopped. He stopped. He said, 'I know you.' I said, 'I know you too. You have my cat!'”
"Turns out he did have my cat, and that Milo was the best cat he’d ever had."
- MtnMoose307
"I was studying in Groningen, 2 hours away from my hometown. Then I went on exchange to Melbourne, Australia, and saw 2 guys from my high school, which was in my hometown, at a bar, and apparently they were also on exchange there. One of them was the ex of a friend of mine. What are the odds?"
"Oh, and another one, I went to a wedding of a friend of mine in Spain, while I live in the Netherlands. We entered the room through the back and walked towards our arranged seats. And who was I sitting next to, a girl who was an old classmate and the ex of another friend of mine. She was there as the photographer."
- theconfusedpigeon
"Not me, but my Grandfather. He fought in Burma during WW2. Whilst there, he bumped into both his brother and the next-door neighbor by chance. Both were serving with other units and did not know he was there until they saw him."
- EnglishWolverine
Penguin Hello GIF by Pudgy Penguins Giphy
"My wife and I do an away Mariners trip every year. This year we were in Philly, and I happened to run into an old friend who used to rent our basement. He still lives near us in WA, but was visiting family in PA and decided to hit the same game."
"Also, not really someone I knew, but I was wearing a Tacoma Defiance (the Seattle Sounders lower-level team) hoodie in Florence. A woman walked by and commented on it, and I explained that, yeah, it’s the Sounders lower-level team, and she said, 'Yeah, I know my son plays for the Sounders.' It was our CB, Jackson Ragen’s mom. Pretty cool!"
- NWBF7109
"Hahaha hahaha. I have an amazing story for this, but the details are so specific it would out me."
"Short version, I ran into an old family friend that I had never met before, 5400 miles away from our hometown. Also, I was carrying around a photo of a family member from decades earlier that he happened to be in. Was his wife pretty amazed? freaked out? that I had a photo of him in my purse."
- horsenbuggy
"I was skiing in Lake Tahoe, CA, and was wearing my dad’s work jacket with his company and name embroidered on the chest from a company he owned in Montreal. I got on a ski lift with my dad’s old business partner, whom he had worked with before I was born. He read the logo and was like, 'Where did you get that jacket?'"
- nitroracertc3
"I'm from New Orleans and was in Roatan, Honduras. I actually didn't know him as he was from California, but he saw my Marines tattoo and asked where I'd been stationed cuz he was a Marine, too. I told him, and he asked if I knew another Marine in NOLA, and sure enough, I did. So I got his contact info, and now they talk again."
- MajIssuesCaptObvious
marine GIF Giphy
Sometimes the world really is a small place.
It makes you wonder, is the Universe guiding us?
Are coincidences really?
Maybe all yes to it all.
Running into familiar faces in far-off countries is wild, though.
It's sort of like living two blocks away from the love of your life in childhood, but never meeting until you're 30!
I'll never forget seeing my first Porsche; it was my friend's mother's, brand new.
They paid for it in cash!
I was gobsmacked.
The super wealthy can have a lot of super cool things.
And it isn't always easy being the non-rich one.
Redditor AmaraMehdi wanted to hear about what it was like to know the rich kids, so they asked:
"What is a 'rich kid' thing you saw at a friend's house growing up that completely shocked you?"
"Had the full Dinobots lineup. Parents owned a pub."
- Welshguy78
"Guarantee that was parents' guilt at spending no time with the kid as they worked all hours in the pub. Source, grew up in a pub as an only child."
- FromBrit-cit
television vintage GIF Giphy
"The Money Drawer. I heard a story from a co-worker about a rich kid she grew up with. Instead of a junk drawer, in the kitchen, they had a drawer filled with cash, $10s, $5s, and some $20s. If any of the kids needed money, they just went to the drawer. Basically, the family's petty cash drawer. Dad refilled it as needed, and they didn’t take more than they needed because it was always there at the ready."
- MiChic21
"Giant glass coffee table in a room full of mind-blowing designer furniture. There are 5 magazines on the glass table. Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, stuff like that. It took me a little while to figure it out, but all of the magazines had the house I was sitting in on the cover."
- smedlap
"A private movie theatre that could fit about 16 people. 2 rows of 8 recliner chairs in a soundproof and dark room. The entire house was absolutely incredible, and that’s when I realized there are levels to wealth."
- AP_professional
"Next to the indoor pool, no less. Went to this girl's graduation party in high school, and her folks owned the local construction company. They had the theater, pool, and gated driveway. She drove a brand new Toyota Avalon to school."
- Drone314
"1980s. By some strange twist of fate, I wound up being best friends with the C.E.O. of our local hospital system. They had arcade games in their house. Nothing too exotic - Pac Man and Joust, and a pinball machine. I was like, 'These people must be the richest people in the world!'"
- HourNo7028
"As a kid, those who had little jeeps they could drive in their backyard shocked me."
- Kivulee
"Same!! That was a pipe dream in my house. A friend and I would hop a fence to use another kid's while they were out 😆."
- enginedwn
Honda Jeep GIF Giphy
"I had a friend in the 90s who had a second house in the mountains - the cottage in the yard was for the hubby/wife 'maintenance team.' He took care of the 40acres, and she took care of everything indoors. In the last few years, I had a conversation with the matriarch, and I asked her about the setup. She said they paid a small salary, but it was basically room/board year-round, and they STILL have that arrangement with a new couple (when the wife died, the husband retired, and they hired a new couple). She said the arrangement works for everyone."
- RockNRollMama
"My roommate and I had a friend in college who swore up and down that she was another girl from the suburbs. She invited us to a small party at her parents' house back in her hometown for New Year's. My roommate and I drove the 5 hours to find that she lives in a four-house-only gated neighborhood with a guard on duty to check us in. Basically, my 1997 hand-me-down Chevy Cavalier looked like pure garbage in that place. Her house is a gorgeous three-story home made of cobblestone with a four-car garage."
"Inside, we are led to the furnished basement to find the biggest TV I still to this day have ever seen, four pool tables, and a door that leads to the actual basement. They have two basements! The next morning, we wake up and are led upstairs to an all-glass dining room to find a Cuban-style breakfast waiting for us that was prepared by a hired chef. Everything just felt... ridiculous."
- Fluffy-Resource-4636
"A Steinway grand piano in their living room that was just for decoration. It was surrounded by a velvet rope, like in a museum, so children wouldn't dare touch it. The same room had a pile of Ferrero Rochers in a crystal candy bowl arranged in a perfect pyramid. My friend said that if anyone touched it, her mom would hang them by the ears. Really, the whole room was for decoration. I could not understand why you'd have the best piano in the world for just decoration, among other things."
- LollipopDreamscape
"I had a friend who had THE WHOLE GI JOE COLLECTION. And multiples of the 'fodder troops and planes/boats/ and trucks.' Also had a whole custom playmat with a geographic look like water and mountains. We had so much fun with his set. Now I think back, and even when these came out, it was a multi-thousand-dollar collection. I would be lucky to get one vehicle from Santa Claus at Christmas. This guy had everything!"
- Yubenbroken
"Not exactly in a home, but rich kid behavior that shocked me. At the time, I was a teenager in the 80s who grew up poor. I made friends with a new group and started hanging out with them."
"This one guy, Joe, wanted to go to the movies. He pays for everyone, and we watch the first 10 minutes and said, 'this movie sucks, let’s go eat.' He got up to leave, and we kinda just all followed along. We eat, and he then pays the bill for everyone."
"Never seen this kind of behavior before or after. I would have struggled to pay for the movie for myself. It was how nonchalant he was with his money that killed me."
- ih8javert
"Indoor pool. At Halloween, this family was the only house that handed out full-size candy bars, so at least they shared the wealth."
- AudreyLocke
"We hand out full-size bars at our place because I remember how it felt to get them as a kid, and I want other kids to experience that joy. It is totally worth it."
- sponge-burger
Trick Or Treat Halloween GIF by SNICKERS Giphy
"In high school, I lived at this intersection of low-income apartments and high-income homes, so school was a mixture of poor and rich kids. I was in the apartments... lol."
"The thing that stuck out to me, going to rich friends’ homes, was the amount of space around the home. Like, once you were in the gate, just huge gardens/empty space all around. You could fit several of the apartments I lived in those spaces."
- Lowskillbookreviews
"When I was about 10 or 11 going to the mall with my rich friend and her family. 1st they told me to pick anything out that I wanted in the KB Toys, I was always taught by my parents to not EVER ask for anything and if ever offered to choose something small.. so I grabbed a small coloring book... they looked at me and laughed and picked out like 10 things for me without even looking at the price... that was JUST in the first store."
"I was so stressed out more because I didn't want my parents to think and get upset with me that I asked for any of this stuff. I remember being so embarrassed and nervous, so I asked my friend to please tell my parents that I wasn't asking for all the stuff they got me. That was a huge shock to me that you can just go to a store and not look at the prices."
- Interesting-Walk2853
"One of my friends when I was a teenager was old school rich. An heiress with her family name on tall buildings, kind of heiress. And we met at summer camp. I was just a clueless middle-class kid from the suburbs. And when I went to her house on Park Avenue, I got on the elevator up to her apartment, and Barbara Streisand walked in."
"Apparently, Babs was my friend’s neighbor and did not like that there was a goofy little emo-goth teenaged girl with dyed pink hair listening to her Walkman and not hearing the doorman pleading with me to please let Ms Streisand go up alone."
"Babs glared at the corner the whole ride, and my friend met me when I got to her floor and pulled a face at Barbara when the doors closed. It was deeply awkward and very funny 30 years later. So yeah, rude celebrity diva neighbors were a strange rich kid thing that shocked me."
- theCuntessVonC*nt
Barbra Streisand Girl GIF Giphy
I would die if THE BABS just strolled into the same room I was in.
DIEEEEE!!!! But it would be a good death.
I have to get rich.
There has to be a way.
I want to shop for anything and everything.
These kids have no idea how lucky they are.
Oh, to be young and rich.
What a life!
