The Ramble: McDonald's Feels Your PainIt always feels strange when corporations try to communicate with me on a human level. When they put on human clothes and project human emotion and tell me that we have a personal relationship. Think about all of the post-9/11 commercials with images of smoky rubble and crying Americans over somber music and a maudlin slogan like “Our Country’s Strong” and tagged with a logo. ‘We are institutionally sorry,’ they say. “Thanks, American Express!,” we are supposed to respond, and then go spend our way back to emotional stability.
Alas, I reflexively think that it is in their interests to appear sorry, so I casually dehumanize the people who run the corporation and make the decision to project corporate sympathy. I don’t feel bad about that decision because they decided to exploit their own emotions for the benefit of the company. YOU WERE A JERK FIRST, Ken Chenault!
The latest silliness happened in my neighborhood. I happen to live pretty close to where Officer Timoshenko was shot and killed a couple of weeks ago. It was horrible, and the neighborhood was understandably upset by the whole ordeal. People collected cards and flowers to drop off at the precinct house and the local mailing list of gentrifiers was full of sympathetic messages. And the local McDonald’s flew its flag at half-mast.
It’s MCDONALD’S flag.
I hate to laugh at anything having to do with the death of Officer Timoshenko, but it looked like Mayor McCheese was assassinated.
