Woman Eats Handbag and Nearly Ends World

Yesterday, a woman ate a handbag on the New York City Subway. I would love to say that that truly was the strangest thing to happen in a New York subway, it would make the world a better place.

It was of course a publicity stunt pulled to plug the Professional Pastry Arts curriculum at the ICC (which either stands for the International Chamber of Commerce, or International Culinary Centre) where making handbag-cakes is a thing, it seems.

That’s it, really, odd news day.

Have you noticed the increase in the number of advertising campaigns that invade facets of social knowledge? Or attempt to, what with the resemblance some campaigns have to an actual invasion, trying to take over our phrases, our Facebooks, our Twitters, our minds! It all seems to spring from this hysterical idea advertising executives have that adverts must be new and sexy and exciting to truly be an effective strategy. In fact, I tried looking it up, see if this strange system of buzzwords and hash tags and bad CGI really was necessary to advertise consumer product number 6442-77. I found this; it may or may not answer my question. It does, however, make me realise something; the advertising (and by extension, consumer) industry suffers from power creep.

What, do you ask, is power creep? Well, you ever hear about Superman not having the power of flight in the past, and now he does? Or Lex Luthor not always being the smart-arse he is today? That’s all true, and it changed because of power-creep: the fear creative people have when they think they aren’t exciting enough. In gaming, it basically translates to one-upmanship on a scale that lead to a franchise with War and Death as the main characters, and then another to top that. In advertising it leads to bigger and better selling more, even if it doesn't actually sell more because “we did something!”

It also means jobs, more professionals getting work, being paid, building contacts, meeting people, falling in love and other things that only happen in romantic comedies and adverts. It also means excessive spending and consumer fatigue but who cares, “we did something!”

In essence, the advertising industry is an economic bubble, and it will burst soon, possibly within a lifetime, possibly more, or it won't and the over-saturation dystopia of Shadowrun will come to pass in all of its glitz, noise and punk aesthetic. The meantime will bring us many more oddities like the handbag-cake, and these (warning, these adverts are banned, hilarity may occur).

What do you think? Is advertising going too far, or not far enough? Give your opinions in the comments section and enjoy this advert, if you can.