Corporate Advertising: A Horror Story

You're walking through a dense, dark forest--you've no recollection of how you got here, but your body seems to know where it's going, your feet guiding you towards a flickering bluish light and accompanied murmuring in the distance. As you get closer to it, you start to make out what the murmured words are saying; it seems to be talking about food whilst a happy tune plays in the background. 

You reach where the light and noise was coming from, now standing in front of an older television that's playing a loop of commercials from the popular fast-food restaurant chain KFC. The mascot, Colonel Sanders, is in the middle of advertising a menu item, 

"... fill yourself up with my five dollar fill-up box!" The Colonel goes quiet after this even though the catchy music keeps going, staring into the distance. Suddenly, the actor's friendly demeanor slips away and instead he snarls at the camera, at the audience, at you specifically. Reaching his hands out, they stretch more than should be physically possible, busting through the screen of the TV and coming towards you at an alarming speed--

You gasp and wake up in a cold sweat, heart beating irregularly as a tell-tale sign you've just had one heck of a nightmare. As you realize the apocalyptic experience you just had was only a dream, you relax and let out a sigh of relief. When the adrenaline of the nightmare subsides enough so you can hear more than the blood rushing past your ears, you become aware of a faint murmuring outside your bedroom door. 

It's probably dad watching late night television again, you think to yourself. Getting out of bed, you decide you should go scold him and coax him into going to sleep--he's been getting worse about staying up too late watching the news recently. Opening your door, your suspicions are proven correct as you see a soft light flickering against the walls from downstairs. You descend the steps, entering the main room featuring the television set. You approach the couch he's sitting on, facing away from you and staring at the TV. It's bright and loud, but you can't discern what it is he's watching.

"Dad, do you know how late it is?" You don't get a response, he simply keeps staring at the images flashing on the screen. Starting to feel a little unnerved again, you step closer and put a hand on his shoulder, "Dad...? Are you o-" His hand strikes suddenly, grabbing your wrist forcefully as he slowly turns his head to look at you. Your eyes widen and you begin to pull back desperately, breaking out into a cold sweat again.

Because instead of your dad's face there's Colonel Sanders, staring at--no, through you, into your very soul. Your dad--Colonel Sanders? opens his mouth and out comes a staticky voice, as if his vocal chords were replaced by a grainy intercom speaker,

"Howdy folks..." You manage to wriggle your way out of the vice-grip your fried father has on your wrist and run to the bathroom, closing the door and flipping the lock. You walk to the sink and grip its ceramic edges, trying to also get a grip on what was happening right now--this had to be another dream, right? Of course it was! You just needed to wake up!

With a shaking hand you turn on the faucet, cupping your hands and filling them with water before splashing your face a few times, rubbing your eyes for good measure. That should have added some clarity to your situation, surely. You take a deep breath and look up into the mirror for the first time since entering the bathroom, and when you see the reflection your heart drops to your stomach and all the hairs on your body stand straight. You have white hair. Somehow, at some point, you'd grown a mustache. You donned glasses and a black bow/bolo tie combo. You've developed an insatiable hunger for fried chicken. YOU are Colonel Sanders. You've always been Colonel Sanders.

You attempt to scream on instinct, but to your added horror you don't recognize your own voice, the only sound coming from your lips being the once jolly, now uncanny chuckle of the white-haired chicken salesman. Quickly, your vision starts to darken, and you realize there is no escaping the corporate entity; the last thing you hear before you lose consciousness is a warped, southern accent booming across the house, delivering the cursed slogan that will echo in your ears for the rest of your subservient life, 

"It's finger-lickin' good."

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Thank you for reading my short story that was actually based on true events.* Through writing that little blurb I discovered I might have some repressed trauma centered around Colonel Sanders. To explain my motivation behind writing this: lately I've been consuming content that has to do with the videogame Little Nightmares II which features some themes strikingly related to what we've been discussing about the television; this mixed with the unease I felt after watching the video Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse ended up with me wanting to somehow express how awful capitalism/ commercialism tends to make me feel. 

*not actually based on true events

Of course, this is an exaggeration; the greedy spirit of KFC's Colonel Sanders isn't going to possess our bodies and leave us without autonomy any time soon (right?). But the fact that narratives similar to the one I told above, that criticize consumerism and our dependency on television, exist abundantly in our media today (American Psycho, Wall-e, The Lego Movie, etc.) suggests that we're becoming more aware of the power corporations have, and that we are or should be scared of it. 

What is it about ads that make them such a good vessel for scary stories? For one thing, the sheer abundance of advertisements in our culture today is overwhelming when really thought about. It's hard to imagine a time where people weren't constantly bombarded with ads, since today they seem to appear everywhere. When something is mass-produced or mass-broadcasted with a frequency like this, we worry about things like "brain washing." And in many ways, we are brain washed--we see smiling, attractive people enjoying themselves on screen and feel an urge to purchase whatever it is that's making them happy. Commercials have crafted an art out of preying on the public's desires, insecurities, and fears. This means advertisers have a strong grip on our public discourse.

I suppose the takeaway from this post could be that we should reflect on how often we're exposed to advertisements and that we should look into the ideologies/motives behind the corporations that are funding certain events. 

Do you think that commercials are more of an annoyance than a threat to humanity? Are the amount and quality of ads we see going to keep increasing or might they decrease in the future (with the implementation of laws/premium accounts that get rid of ads)? Do you think videos like Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse are overdramatic pieces of cynicism or warranted warnings about a serious problem?