The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, November 8

Hey, everyone!

I’m enjoying a slice of cake as I write this, which makes me very happy.

Ramble of the Day

I cannot say that I have a lot of hot takes when it comes to commercials. Some are enjoyable, most aren’t, and there are a few bad ones, but I’m not particularly offended by their existences. I take a few minutes while watching television usually to either digest what I’m watching, take a break from it, or just tune it all out. It’s a regular and mundane experience, for the most part. Car commercials usually change that.

There are a few reasons why. Take, for example, this advertisement for the 2018 Range Rover Sport, versions of which have aired on American television recently. This is very obviously an advertisement for a specific type of car that’s asked to take on a little bit more of a load, like drive up mountains. The concept of the commercial itself, though, is so far fetched, unrealistic, and ultimately ridiculous. The driver in the commercial drives up 999 stairs, something that absolutely no one that buys this car will need to do, or probably actually should do. That’s clearly the idea, though — impress people with the idea that they can accomplish a version of a stunt I first saw in The Bourne Identity even though they’ll never have reason to attempt this.

Plenty of them end up being variations of this concept. There are quite a number of car commercials that end up appealing to aesthetics more so than the most practical products out there. Of course, driving your car to and from work on a weekday does not make for a sexy advertisement, and a lot of companies end up opting to pick out a less ordinary occurrence and try to make it somewhat funny. A lot of them, though, trying to make cars that people are only going to use for practical reasons something they’re not: glossy, stylish, and even attractive.

That is not to say wanting a beautiful car is unnatural, or even bad. Cars are a little bit like clothes in that regard, following the simple idea that we all like to look nice, however we define it. Even clothing advertisements try to sell glamour, but they hardly ever end up being unrealistic. The actors and models end up in realistic set pieces; enjoying a good time with the company around them, or in something that very openly looks like a photo shoot. (That isn’t particularly hard to recreate, something I feel viewing the Instagram accounts of my peers and other people my age as we become obsessed with how we want people to perceive our lives, but that’s a different story.) They’re always a little bit idealistic, but never ridiculously far off the mark.

If anything, elaborate car commercials resemble those bizarre perfume commercials. There’s a little more variance in perfume commercials, I find, though the idea of selling a feeling or an experience that the customers won’t be able to recreate is still there. I’ve accepted that those perfume commercials, mostly created by luxury brands in the business of selling themselves as greater than all in a high fashion sense. Car companies are similar, but I can’t quite reconcile the practicality of a car with this vision of drama.

Perfume just makes you smell good, so you have to sell something other than smelling good. You can’t make the argument that a car company can’t sell a car by talking practical points — Chevy’s most recent advertisements are all about the safety awards the company receives. I just can’t reconcile the impracticality of the commercial with the relative practicality of actually owning a car.

tl;dr: A long ramble about car commercials. (Sorry!)

Links of the Day

FIFA president Gianni Infantino suggests that players that participate in the European Super League might be banned from playing at the World Cup.

The FA will appeal the decision to not punish Manchester United manager José Mourinho for making inappropriate comments towards the camera during his side’s victory over Newcastle earlier this season.

Harry Kane believes Wayne Rooney should captain England during his farewell match against the United States this month.

Today’s longer read: Debora Rey on the Argentina women’s team’s plan to gain popularity and equality as they prepare for the final stage of World Cup qualifying for the Associated Press