You’ve all probably see the commercial that inspired this particular rant—it’s the one for Direct TV’s moving package. As the scene opens we see a man, let’s call him Mover Guy, loading a U-Haul truck, obviously in the process of moving himself. Another man, let’s call him Neighbor Guy, arrives and (after declining to help Mover Guy), takes a seat on a carton. Mover Guy reminds Neighbor Guy that he owes him $500 (leading me to believe that Neighbor Guy is actually Brother-In-Law Guy since I can’t believe anybody would loan this moron five hundred bucks otherwise). Neighbor Guy begins to extol the wonders of Direct TV’s moving package which will allow Mover Guy to get connected at his new place. At one point Neighbor Guy consults something written on his palm so that he can get the name of the package right, making it clear that this is all A Plan. At the end of his spiel he points out that this moving package is worth more than five hundred and that it’s free, so, he says triumphantly, “it’s like you owe me.” Mover Guy grins to himself and shakes his head while Neighbor Guy does a triumphant dance in the background.

I hate this commercial on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, of course, Neighbor Guy is so obnoxious you want to reach through the television screen and throttle him. But more than that, you want to shake Mover Guy so hard that his teeth rattle. You want him to turn to Neighbor Guy and say, “No, Chuck, you still owe me the five hundred. And if you don’t pay up before I leave town, I’ll send over my friend Big Vinnie to break your kneecaps.” You want the commercial to end with anything other than the Triumph Of the Jerk.

I’ve never been clear on the logic behind commercials where the representative of the product is a jerk. This isn’t the only one out there. For example, there’s the one for Athenos hummus where the unbelievably nasty Greek granny calls a girl a prostitute because of her (not particularly revealing) dress. Then we’re supposed to want to buy the hummus because Granny the Bitch likes it. I’ve never taken a course in advertising, but it seems to me that you want your product to be identified with admirable people since you want potential buyers to get the message that if they buy your product they’ll be admirable too. Jerk commercials, on the other hand, seem to imply that if you buy a certain product, you’ll be one with jerks everywhere. Is that really the right message to send?

But of course an advertising person would point out that the whole point of any ad is to make you remember the product. You may forget the ad itself over time, but with any luck you’ll remember the product name, and that’s the point. Apparently, even if you hate ads like these, the logic is that you’ll remember Direct TV and Athenos because of your strong reaction. And that’s supposed to be good.

I really hope that isn’t the case, although I can’t guarantee that it isn’t. I don’t have cable or satellite, so there’s little chance that I’ll be buying Direct TV in the near future, but this commercial is enough to put me off if for life. And frankly, I didn’t even remember that the annoying Athenos commercial was for hummus (I thought it was for yogurt)—all I remembered was how offensive Grandma was. I’m so annoyed by these commercials, in fact, that I’m willing to take a pledge never to buy these products if I can possibly avoid it.

My reasoning? I run into enough jerks on the highways of our fair city. I don’t need to run into more of them on my TV. And they sure as hell don’t make me want to buy the products they’re pushing.