Quit yelling, Peloton; forget to put Poise in your pants?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/02/2021 (2020 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic. I’m not sure if it’s the brutal cold snap. I’m not sure if it’s because Tom Brady just won his seventh (bad word) Super Bowl. I’m even not sure if it’s the fact the dentist says I have my first cavity in the last 25 years.

Whatever it is, I am in a supremely foul mood. Which is why today I have decided to use this space to let off a little steam via the journalistic technique of venting my spleen over something that has really been getting on my nerves lately.

As many of you have no doubt already deduced, I am talking about TV commercials, which, unless I am utterly mistaken — always a distinct possibility — have become more (bad word) annoying than ever.

Consider something media psychologist Stuart Fischoff wrote in 2013 for Psychology Today: “I call it ‘Commercial Creep,’ the relentless, intrusive proliferation of commercials into every media second of our multi-media lives. My tolerance is long gone. The issue now is controlling my intolerance, which is bordering on complete irrationality.”

Ha, ha, ha! Sorry… I mean, right on, Stuart! In my case, however, I have crossed the border into complete irrationality because of my burgeoning hatred for certain obnoxious commercials.

For instance, I want everyone to know I hate the Shreddies Twins, a pair of identical brothers who, for reasons that are beyond rational understanding, are more passionate about this breakfast cereal than Greta Thunberg is about the environment.

Even more than those cereal-loving twins, I hate those inane ads for Poise hygiene products, especially the one wherein a busy woman is working at home and looking after her daughter, while the cheery narrator chirps: “Here’s Candice… she can handle pickup even when her bladder makes a little drop-off, because Candice has poise; poise under pressure and Poise in her pants!”

Really, narrator? Poise in her pants! This commercial is so aggravating it causes my normally calm wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, to roll her eyeballs into the back of her head in disgust.

But there are no ads I currently hate more than the ones for those luxury high-tech exercise bikes made by Peloton. In 2019, the entire world was seeing red over an ad in which a jerk of a husband gives his already-fit wife one of these stationary bikes, then she makes a year-long video blog chronicling her pedalling to please her insensitive spouse. “A year ago, I didn’t realize how much this would change me,” she says in the vlog. “Thank you.”

Thank you?! Really, Peloton? Thank you for body-shaming people into possibly spending the same amount on an exercise bike as they normally would on a new car.

Personally, I am even more annoyed by the new crop of Peloton ads that highlight how you, the fitness-loving user, can hop on a bike and pedal into oblivion while staring at a screen on which you are livestreaming leather-lunged, snotty fitness instructors who encourage you to pedal even faster by shrieking nonsensical remarks while you sweat like a Butterball turkey on Thanksgiving.

Lately, every time I turn on the TV, I will see seemingly fit people churning away on their luxury bikes while even sweatier and fitter instructors screech motivational messages such as: “You came to play, Peloton. Getting a little savage with it!” And: “They can’t stop you, they can’t break you!” Or: “Say it with me… I CRUSHED THAT!”

This is not the way normal, healthy people talk, Peloton. And I am not the only person who feels this way. The other weekend I was watching Saturday Night Live and they featured a spoof commercial entitled “Pelotaunt,” in which they described this device as the “only exercise bike that provides you with personalized, at-home negative reinforcement and relentless criticism.”

“If anyone yells that I can do one more, I will immediately get off this thing, unplug it and go smoke,” is what one of the comic actors snorted in the parody ad.

Look, I personally have nothing against exercise equipment. I just do not have the patience to deal with exercise equipment that comes equipped with people whose sole passion in life is yelling at the people trying to use it.

Which is why I love the old-school treadmill in the basement. The way it works is you plug it in, let it warm up, then climb on and walk at your own chosen speed without the benefit of on-screen motivational speakers who appear to have ingested far too much crack cocaine.

This non-motivational treadmill has given me some amazing workouts over the years. For instance, because it weighs slightly more than a battleship, I lost several pounds when I dragged it down the stairs, accidentally crushing a hand in the process.

Or the first time I hit the button that elevates the treadmill to simulate running up a hill, a function that served to slam my head into the ceiling tiles, which are much lower than I thought.

Not to mention the time when I stepped on the treadmill when it was set at maximum speed and was ejected like a ping pong ball into a bookcase on the other side of the room.

So, yes, this treadmill has tried to kill me on more than one occasion. In its defence, however, it has never once yelled at me.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca