I've just read yet another article about this year's Super Bowl commercials. It seems that everyone from newspaper columnists to television talk show hosts, to the 'man on the street' has an opinion they would like to share with the world regarding their views of which Madison Avenue creations were 'successful' this past Sunday night.
I watched the game. Well, I'd use the verb 'watch' loosely. Other women and I were having great fun conversing and we kept our sights on the game.....occasionally. It wasn't too hard because we were in a room with a giant television screen that made it seem that you could reach out and catch the football yourself. When a commercial came on, which was about every five minutes, we'd either pay full attention or half attention, depending on the efficacy of the commercial. Some of them were real conversation stoppers and others (many) were yawn-producers. Some elicited guffaws while others evoked looks of pure boredom.
There were two that exacted instant reactions among those I was with: The commercial for a clothing line that had all the hunter-gatherers running around pantless and the beer commercial that showcased the friendship between a colt and a calf. Later, in this commercial, the punchline comes when the colt has grown to be a draft horse and the calf a bull, complete with a mighty-fine set of horns. My take-a-way from this is that you never know when a friend from your past might burst through 'the fence' and make an appearance in your life.......which is what the whole Facebook 'thing' seems poised to make possible.
Social networking is a fascinating phenomenon. One could literally spend waaaay too many hours per day 'browsing' through Facebook, or other sites like it, searching for people. While Facebook does provide the opportunity to re-connect with people from our pasts, those re-connections are all faceless. I have friends from yesteryear that I would like to 'find' but, ultimately, the best reunion is like the one where the bull bursts through the fence and proceeds to run beside his old friend, the draft horse.
You still cannot beat face-to-face, real-time friendships. I need to remember that.
Ancora imparo
