Modern marketing. At it's very second best.

My wife and I are close to buying a seaside home in a little town nestled on the Gingham Coast in Middlesex County, Connecticut. It’s a lovely place—just decrepit enough to keep me working until I collapse in a sweaty heap and die of exhaustion. But not so decrepit that my wife doesn’t want it.

Last week, in a rare display of foresight, I thought it made sense to buy a bed. So we could sleep, not on the floor.

Somehow I came across an ad for a bed you could buy online and assemble by yourself in minutes. It looked ok. It looked well-made. It wasn’t extraordinarily expensive. And they deliver in two or three days. So far, so good.

I went to their site and of course, as is de rigueur today, I got hit with a pop-up window. If I gave the Thuma people my email, I could save $25 on the bed.

I hesitated. But saving money is the better part of valor and I gave them my email. Since that moment about five days ago I’ve gotten about twenty messages from the Thuma company. Plus their ads have followed me on every social media site I visit, whenever I visit them. With each message and each ad, I’ve gotten more and more pissed at the Thuma company.

What right do you have, because you’ve promised me roughly 3% off the price of the bed, to stalk me? This isn’t passive stalking—like that of traditional advertising where I might happen to see a Verizon ad no matter when I open a magazine, newspaper or turn on the television. The is a full-fledged effort to follow my every movement.

I don’t feel that you are watching me, Thuma. You are watching me.

But then it gets worse. With this crap.

Everyone depicted on the Thuma website is impossibly thin. And impossibly beautiful. And impossibly hip. In other words, everyone is impossibly unlike me.

Everyone is also so fucking giddy. And so impeccably coifed. And they’ve just found something uproariously funny.

Oh, and if you're speaking to me, please don't speak to me like I can't spell. It's taken me a lifetime to lower my standards to the point where I use vernacular like "gonna." But "gunna"? And below that, "MMHMM"? Uh-uh.

There is so much I hate about this pandering way of writing. 

"Thanks for joining us!" I didn't join you. I wanted a coupon. Then "we're focused on celebrating..." No, you're focused on making beds. Lastly, "designed for how you live". If you knew how I lived you'd find a dictionary, a copywriter, some overweight models and start over.

Of course it gets worse. These things always do. "Thoughtful beds..." Because my last three beds weren't thoughtful at all--they were callous, unthinking snots--queen-sized snots, at that and one folded out. "Modern living..." because I've secretly shacked up with Jane Jetson and Elroy is our tow-headed robotic lovechild. Mmmmm, sex with androids.

Then as if you're Soren Fucking Kierkegaard, "We call it Functional Luxury. For the Indoor Enthusiast." I can't figure out your capitalization system, why each line is punctuated, what Functional Luxury is or how you came to the conclusion that I am an "Indoor Enthusiast," whatever that may be. Or "shop the bed." Because I guess saying shop for the bed would derail the entire capitalist system forever.

Next, why is this Spandex-clad woman practicing the balance beam on her $900 bed? Izzat Simone Biles? Is that what you mean by being an "Indoor Enthusiast"? If so, count me out. I'm still mastering the perpendicular bars.

And where is this guy leaping from? In the parlance of school-yard basketball, he's gotten air. It looks like he's taken the plunge from a nearby brick wall or perhaps his "Indoor Enthusiast Diving Board™." Void where prohibited, or above the shoulders whichever comes first.

 Finally, why is this "content" allowed to be on a family site like YouTube. It ain't exactly Citizen Kane. Or even the TyD Bowl Man.

"So I thought I'd pop on here real fast and give a review of this bay-ed, not the mattress...Anyways, it's not about the mattress, it's about the bed.  [Knocks] Solid. Wood. Bed. So my thoughts on the bed. Weeeeee love it. That's pretty much all I have to say." 

But then she goes on for three more minutes.

60 years ago, David Ogilvy said "The consumer isn't a moron, she's your wife."

But everyone here is treated like a sub-moron.

Keep doing work like this, Thuma. Yer gunna git in trubble.