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  • A rusted, bent shopping cart overflowing with pixelated digital icons like shattered red hearts, a broken blue verified checkmark, and smiling emojis, set against a background of a crumbling, post-apocalyptic city street.
    March 5, 2026 The Cranky Creative

    Age of decay: the enshittification of everything

    Am I the only one noticing that everything is turning to crap? Crap ads. Crap

    Continue reading
  • Pringles Super Bowl LX ad "Pringleleo" featuring Sabrina Carpenter; a prime example of modern advertising’s decline into absurdism and celebrity worship.
    February 10, 2026 The Cranky Creative

    Bad ads for bad brains: the mutual dumbing down of ads and audiences

    Is the advertising industry dying because creatives are lazy, or because audiences are too dumb

    Continue reading
  • Nuclear explosion symbolizing the explosive fallout from calling out hypocrisy in the 'bold' ad industry
    January 21, 2026 The Cranky Creative

    The creative farce: why the world’s “boldest” thinkers are actually the biggest cowards

    If your “boldness” requires a permission slip from the HR department, you are not a

    Continue reading
  • Image reminiscent of the final scene from the movie Planet of the Apes in which Charles Heston's astronaut character finds the ruined Statue of Liberty on the beach and realizes that mankind has destroyed itself
    October 26, 2025 The Cranky Creative

    How advertising created a nation of entitled assholes

    It’s over. I’m done. For years, I’ve used The Cranky Creative to vent about the

    Continue reading
  • A collage of virtue-signaling ad campaigns that flopped: Bud Light, Pepsi, Jaguar and more
    August 20, 2025 The Cranky Creative

    Virtue, Inc.: How progressive politics hijacked business and marketing

    Marketing used to be about connection — understanding what people wanted and selling it with

    Continue reading
  • In 1957, researchers experimented to see if subliminal messages could be used to increase sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola
    May 8, 2023 The Cranky Creative

    Subliminal messages in advertising … and Disney cartoons?

    A phallic shadow. The word “SEX” etched in ice. The American public has been bombarded

    Continue reading
  • Today's blog post talks about the top 10 reasons why people hate TV commercials
    February 28, 2023 The Cranky Creative

    The real reasons people hate TV commercials

    Oh, advertisers. It didn’t have to be this way. Once upon a time, consumers might

    Continue reading
  • The Cranky Creative explores where all the white people are in commercials
    January 5, 2022 The Cranky Creative

    What happened to white people in TV commercials?

    If you only watched TV, you might think that white people (including fumbling, bumbling white

    Continue reading

Cutting through the BS, one blog post at a time

A rusted, bent shopping cart overflowing with pixelated digital icons like shattered red hearts, a broken blue verified checkmark, and smiling emojis, set against a background of a crumbling, post-apocalyptic city street.
March 5, 2026 The Cranky Creative

Age of decay: the enshittification of everything

Am I the only one noticing that everything is turning to crap? Crap ads. Crap science. Crap food. Crap music. Crap movies. Crap people. Crap software that you “subscribe” to

Continue reading
Pringles Super Bowl LX ad "Pringleleo" featuring Sabrina Carpenter; a prime example of modern advertising’s decline into absurdism and celebrity worship.
February 10, 2026 The Cranky Creative

Bad ads for bad brains: the mutual dumbing down of ads and audiences

Is the advertising industry dying because creatives are lazy, or because audiences are too dumb to care? For years, I’ve used The Cranky Creative to document the slow-motion death of

Continue reading
Nuclear explosion symbolizing the explosive fallout from calling out hypocrisy in the 'bold' ad industry
January 21, 2026 The Cranky Creative

The creative farce: why the world’s “boldest” thinkers are actually the biggest cowards

If your “boldness” requires a permission slip from the HR department, you are not a pirate — you’re a parrot. WARNING: explosive post ahead. In the ad world, we worship

Continue reading
Image reminiscent of the final scene from the movie Planet of the Apes in which Charles Heston's astronaut character finds the ruined Statue of Liberty on the beach and realizes that mankind has destroyed itself
October 26, 2025 The Cranky Creative

How advertising created a nation of entitled assholes

It’s over. I’m done. For years, I’ve used The Cranky Creative to vent about the decline of the advertising industry. I’ve complained about the lazy concepts, the idiot creatives, the

Continue reading
A collage of virtue-signaling ad campaigns that flopped: Bud Light, Pepsi, Jaguar and more
August 20, 2025 The Cranky Creative

Virtue, Inc.: How progressive politics hijacked business and marketing

Marketing used to be about connection — understanding what people wanted and selling it with style. Today, marketing has become a megaphone for progressive politics, preaching woke ideologies that alienate

Continue reading
In 1957, researchers experimented to see if subliminal messages could be used to increase sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola
May 8, 2023 The Cranky Creative

Subliminal messages in advertising … and Disney cartoons?

A phallic shadow. The word “SEX” etched in ice. The American public has been bombarded with subliminal messages for decades, and the practice continues to this day. In 1957, researchers

Continue reading
Today's blog post talks about the top 10 reasons why people hate TV commercials
February 28, 2023 The Cranky Creative

The real reasons people hate TV commercials

Oh, advertisers. It didn’t have to be this way. Once upon a time, consumers might have liked to hear from you. They might have eagerly awaited your TV commercials to

Continue reading
The Cranky Creative explores where all the white people are in commercials
January 5, 2022 The Cranky Creative

What happened to white people in TV commercials?

If you only watched TV, you might think that white people (including fumbling, bumbling white males) are a minority in the United States. Depending on the commercial break, you might

Continue reading
The Cranky Creative's Super Bowl LX drinking game
February 3, 2026 The Cranky Creative

Super Bowl LX: a drinking game for the red-pilled

A thinking person’s guide to surviving the $8M-per-30-second brainwash. Welcome back, Cranky readers, to the $1 billion psychological experiment we call the Super Bowl. While the “normies” are bawling over

Continue reading
An unemployed Millenial white male sits dejectedly on a park bench
January 13, 2026 The Cranky Creative

The lost generation: how DEI mandates erased Millennial white men

They told you it was “progress.” They called it “equity.” But if you look at the cold, hard numbers, it looks a lot more like a targeted demolition. For a

Continue reading
A sign outside CVS promotes the flu shot
January 4, 2026 The Cranky Creative

Flu risk increased 33% after vaccination: Cleveland Clinic study

Trading the flu for something worse? They’re at it again. For more than a week now, my Facebook feed has been inundated with “news” channels from around the country posting

Continue reading
Three wistful elderly ladies watch young sledders in the Amazon holiday ad, "Joy Ride"
December 14, 2025 The Cranky Creative

Amazon’s ‘Joy Ride’ ad: the sweet art of emotional manipulation

A reader named Terri recently asked if I’d seen the Amazon holiday ad, “Joy Ride.” It features three elderly women looking wistfully at a snowy hill where young people are

Continue reading
Windows By Andersen: Trust Your Windows to Andersen: The Cranky Ad Review
December 10, 2025 The Cranky Creative

So dumb, it hurts: the ‘Trust Your Home to Andersen’ Ad Review

Well, folks, let’s toast the end of the year with one final, satisfying roast of the modern advertising industry. Why bother trying to pinpoint the worst TV commercial of 2025

Continue reading
Our hidden history. Photo of the White City at the Chicago World's Fair.
December 7, 2025 The Cranky Creative

History is a lie — uncovering a lost global civilization

What if everything you learned about history was wrong? Is official history a lie? Did we inherit a majestic past only to be taught “we built it”? In my recent

Continue reading
NASA bloopers showing astronauts on wires, combined with a composite image of a CGI globe and missing Apollo 11 tape boxes.
November 9, 2025 The Cranky Creative

NASA bloopers: wire fails, lost evidence, and CGI globes

After taking aim at processed food in my last post on “The Foodening,” I felt the need to aim a little higher… about 200 miles above Earth, to be precise.

Continue reading
Watch "The Foodening: How We All Got Cheerily Poisoned," from Probably Alexandra
November 4, 2025 The Cranky Creative

The brands you trust are poisoning your food (for profit)

Stop blaming yourself for being sick. We are living in a rigged game, and the playing field is literally your dinner plate. As devoted Cranky readers know, I am highly

Continue reading

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Today’s Top Posts

  • Age of decay: the enshittification of everything
  • Liberty Mutual's branded idiocy: is this the future of advertising?
  • My short-lived career as a United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier
  • Yes, the Gillette Venus Pubic Hair and Skin razor ad goes (down) there
  • Subliminal messages in advertising ... and Disney cartoons?
  • What happened to white people in TV commercials?

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