You might not know the opening monologue from ‘Trainspotting’ off by heart, but chances are that you’ve heard it and I’m fairly certain that you’ll realise that Ewan McGregor is delivering it ironically and that these are all the aspects of his life that he totally hates and symbolise the emptiness of modern existence. Unfortunately it looks like some people missed the entire point of this scene entirely though.
Featured Image VIA
This can clearly be seen by this combined attempt from the minds of an advertising agency and the government to get us to go back into the office disguised in the form of an advert for Dettol that has appeared on the London tube system today. There are two variations of the monologue which both very UNironically describe all the annoying and awful things about going into the office and commuting on the London tube in a way that implies that anyone who has experienced them absolutely loves them, before advising that if you want to able to continue living this wonderful life then you had better use Dettol to sanitise your hands. Talk about detached from reality?
It might seem like a good idea if people in London enjoyed any aspect of what was written on the billboards, but even before I read the Twitter reaction I could tell you that 100% of Londoners (and probably just the majority of office workers in general) don’t feel that way about any of the things that are being described on the poster. Here’s some of the best reaction though anyway:
honestly all these dettol ads have put me firmly on the side of the 0.1% of bacteria it doesn’t kill https://t.co/WUigAsE3ZM
— man pointing one gun at you and another at himself (@stepheniscowboy) September 3, 2020
Describing commuting as having “an hour to yourself in the morning” is too far sorry https://t.co/HqSxcUh5gb
— Jenny se quois (@mmtowns) September 3, 2020
‘Siri: show me a world where Trainspotting was written by candidates on The Apprentice’ https://t.co/6tjfEep9O1
— Steve K Cole (@stevekeldcole) September 3, 2020
They’ve literally done the Trainspotting intro but without the irony. Incredible https://t.co/WxG5WYkVVj
— Kieran Dawson (@lukeallen9002) September 3, 2020
The best response, given the ad is written in a sub Trainspotting style. https://t.co/mxzF7wwOLZ
— Dickon Edwards (@dickon_edwards) September 3, 2020
The more I read this, the more nonsensical it gets.
The final ‘joy of going back to work in the office’ listed is leaving the office early
WTAF? https://t.co/eXqkMaXOF1
— Grumpy aka Agent Tired Tortoise (@GrumpyYetAmusin) September 3, 2020
did…did Hell write this? https://t.co/af83YtTrSv
— Sorcha Ní Nia (@Luiseach) September 3, 2020
This really reads like the agitprop texts being produced by Situationist-inspired anarchists in the 1980s & 1990s about the tedium and stultification of office work. https://t.co/i41P2kN4Dm
— a very specific kind of music historian (@MediocreDave) September 3, 2020
It’s as if a LinkedIn cop saw the opening of Trainspotting and thought Ewan McGregor loved all those things https://t.co/XB6a7gqPrA
— tanujaa 😎🇱🇰 (@tanujaaphoebee) September 3, 2020
There are literally thousands more of these on the internet and I can imagine that it’s only going to get worse over the course of the day. I often think how many people must have been involved in misguided ad campaigns like this and how mad it is that not one of them piped up and said ‘we’re going to get completely rinsed for this you know guys? Maybe we shouldn’t.’ but I guess sometimes it’s just easy to roll with all those buzzwords so you can get everything done and bunk off early for a cheeky afternoon in the sun. This one really does take some believing though.
I know that ‘there’s no such thing as bad advertising’ but I feel like this poster is going to be associated with Dettol – a brand that was completely neutral in my eyes previously – forever now and actively make me look for a different hand sanitiser/antibacterial wipe in the future because it’s so awful and embarrassing. Sorry guys.
For more of the same, check out these details for the third Trainspotting movie. Sounds like it could be killer.
