Drift Reality

I’m a big fan of ESPN.com, but if they keep playing that stupid Coke Zero advertisement, I’m going to swear off sports and pick up knitting just so I won’t have to hear a bunch of clowns singing, “I’d like to teach the world to chill,” when I’m trying to read about how Sean Taylor (the Washington Redskins starting free safet) ripped someone’s head off in a football game.

Coke commercials have always really perturbed me, but this one takes it to masochistic levels.

The commercial starts with G. Love, who has apparently decided to become Coke’s man-whore, playing guitar and rapping on a Philadelphia rooftop. Then, we ostensibly go back in time and watch as G. Love walks the streets of Philadelphia with a black male companion.

Suddenly, his companion points up to rooftop, as if to say, “Hey G. Love, maybe if we go up to that rooftop we will find a multi-racial gathering of people drinking Coke Zero and you can sing and rap about how great it is and how people should chill out.”

Suddenly, we are transported back to the rooftop where we find out what happens if you mix the following together:

Ingredients for chilltop (Coke’s terminology) aka. rationale for making me want to scoop my eyes out with a spork (my terminology):

• One white male with brown dreadlocks.
• A black guy with a stupid gas station hat.
• An Indian guy with a big afro.
• A bi-racial black/white girl.
• Another white male with short brown hair.
• A white male playing the guitar.
• An East Asian girl who hasn’t showered recently.
• Another black guy who hasn’t showered recently.
• A white girl with brown hair.
• A white girl with red hair.
• About four more people who are spawned from interracial sex.
• I’ve been told that G. Love’s whore band is also in this commercial, which gives a whole new meaning to the name, “Special Sauce.”

Before I continue to lambast both Coke and G. Love, I’d like to note one glaring omission: I didn’t see any Latinos in this video. Do Latinos not deserve to drink Coke Zero? Is Coke saying that Latinos are fatties who don’t care about their weight? I hope someone who reads this works with a Latin-rights advocacy group and they start a campaign against Coke.

So while head toobag G. Love, “raps” and plays the guitar - and I use the word “rap” loosely because before I knew this was G. Love, I thought Donnie Wahlberg had died his hair dark-brown and was making a comeback - this creamsicle of morons sings:

“I’d like to teach the world to chill, take time to stop and smile. I’d like to buy the world a Coke and chill with it a while.”

When I first heard the lyrics to this song, I was literally shocked. First of all, I literally felt physically ill at the usage of the word “chill.”

The word “chill” makes me want to bitch-slap whoever has just had the nerve to use it in everyday speech, so imagine the effect that an entire rooftop of idiots, all singing “chill” over-and-over in perfect harmony, has on me.

It made me want to sprint through my TV and onto the rooftop, grab the guitar out of G. Love’s little claws, and go Belushi on everyone on that rooftop.

What does “chilling” have to do with drinking Coke? Nothing! It has absolutely nothing to do with drinking Coke. Actually, the defining ingredient in Coke is caffeine - a stimulant. Are you telling me that a kid who has had three or four Cokes in the span of one hour wants to chill? Maybe you could ask him if you could get him to stop running circles around his block and screaming the words to the “Star-Spangled Banner” for ten seconds.

If someone wants to “chill,” they should probably smoke pot or take a xanax; not chug down a drink that contains a stimulant.

And why does Coke have to be so blatantly PC with their casting (again, with the noted exception of any Latinos)? Do they really think that some Indian guy is sitting at home, watching this commercial and thinking to himself,

“Hmm..don’t like Coke Zero…

No…

Still don’t like it…

Not yet…

[sees an Indian guy on rooftop]

There it is! Mom! I’m going to the store to buy a six-pack of Coke Zero.”

It gets worse.

When I decided I needed to actually watch the stupid commercial again before blasting it, I visited the Coke Zero Web site and was privy to a load screen that stated “He who is the most chill wins,” and a navigation system that contained a link to “chillosophy.”

I don’t want to chillosophize, and I don’t want to win if winning means being the most “chill.”

I want everyone on that rooftop and everyone involved in the production of this advertisement to be sent to a deserted island with nothing to eat or drink except Coke Zero.

I want there to be large speakers placed throughout this deserted island that play their stupid chill song infinitely, until they all go insane and begin chanting the word “chill” repeatedly while deciding who will be the first “rooftopper” to be eaten.

You know what the ironic thing about this all is? I actually like Coke Zero. If only Coke hadn’t gone and ruined a perfectly good thing by being Coke.

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