Peter Pan Syndrome

I could very well be wrong (as it seems I often am), but in my own personal opinion Americans today are incapable of maturing past the age of twelve. This seems especially true of the men in our society. They just can't seem to grow beyond their desire for cool toys and the comfort of motherly love. Virtually every man seems incapable of truely making decisions for himself, or of taking on accountability for his actions once those decisions are made.

Television not only plays on this aspect of the modern American character, but even encourages it. Often times I'll see commercials portraying the grown man as nothing more than an overgrown child. Now one might expect this from an advertisement aiming at the wives and mothers of our fair society, but too often we find this even in ads geared towards men. Commercials for things such as trucks, four wheelers, stereo systems, deodorant, etc., try to convince men, not only that they deserve some reward for their day to day struggle, but that they deserve the biggest, baddest toys on the block. Sorry to burst your bubble guys, but you deserve nothing; if you have alot, so be it, if you have little, so be it--either way you don't deserve it. Nobody deserves what they get, good or bad.

Commercials aimed at women are even worse. They tend to portray men as weak, pathetic, little boys who are totally incapable of taking care of themselves. If it wasn't for the motherly touch they would surely die in a week's time. Now I don't know about the rest of the guys around here, but when I was sixteen I moved 1500 miles away from my family and have lived entirely alone most of the time since then (explains quite a bit, doesn't it). I'm still alive and in pretty damned good shape I must say. So...

Advertisers, please quit treating us like imbecillic toddlers. Many of us are just as clever as you and don't apreciate people thinking they need to dumb down the message for us to understand. Men, please quit proving the advertisers right. You do us all a great disservice. If you really are that stupid and childish, then please do the entire world a favor and kill yourself--though if you're too weak to live, you're probably too weak to die.