Monday, December 16, 2013
Miscast
Introverts are steadily annoyed by official or commercial misunderstandings. People who really should know better (i.e. shrinks and marketers) simply assume that all humans are bouncy loud extroverts because they don't know anyone who isn't. Most of the time we take this crap silently, because we take everything silently, because we're introverts.
Occasionally a misunderstanding is just too bizarre to take silently. One such is a new Toyota radio ad. It's supposedly a phone call between an uncool dude and a Toyota "customer representative." An old theme: Can your product make me cool? Doesn't work because this dude is already cool. His intonation and prosody indicate that he is accustomed to having authority, accustomed to being heard and obeyed, able to pause for several seconds without fear of being interrupted. This is a man who has always been in charge, a man who expertly sets the pace and structure of conversations.
Uncool dudes, when we bother to speak at all, keep it short and simple. We know that our information will not be heard or obeyed, and we know that a long sentence or a long pause will be interrupted and rolled over. No point in wasting air.
¶ 6:54 AM 
