"Commercial"ism at its worst

I recently saw a commercial for the Toyota Highlander and I have to say I think that my perception of Toyota just went down quite a few notches. I was really disheartened by the message it was sending to kids and adults.

Not only was the message that you are a “lame” parent if you don’t buy an expensive car with all the bells and whistles, but you are also “lame” if you enjoy life and your family time. You also need to be plugged in all the time because, well, that’s just cooler.

We never had entertainment systems in our cars. We never had the nicest cars. I know we thought our parents were crazy at times, but so what? Doesn’t every kid think that at some point? But I’ve never met a kid that wasn’t thankful for quality time with family. I never look back on times we spent in the car and think, boy I wish I could have just plugged myself in and had no interaction with anyone.

As I mentioned I am appalled that the commercial doesn’t even insinuate but point blank says that because the parents enjoying life in their “small” car don’t have the Highlander they are “lame.” What message does that send to our kids and parents? You have to have the best to be cool! I don’t think we need any more messages like that out there! It’s bad enough our kids get it from movies and tv and magazines and school, now commercials too and commercials for things beyond them? And this kid wasn’t even a teenager. He was probably middle school age.

Argggh…I hate the commercialism of our world and the lack of family values that 99% of media instills. People can swear up and down that it’s just a commercial and doesn’t have any effect but I tell you what, if that’s you, you are wrong. If advertising did not work it would not be on the air so much. It’s a lucrative industry all about the benjamins and I’ve personally had enough. I have to sit through and rip up commercials left and right these days and this one was too much!

If you are a parent I’d encourage you to practice dissecting commercials as well. Sit down with your kids, watch a commercial, even on YouTube and ask them what the message is that the commercial is sending? And discuss what God says and what the Truth of the matter is. Discuss why the commercial is selling lies and why their message does not provide what it claims to.

I did a google search on the commercial just to see what I could find and I found that many feel like me. I am glad I am not the only one! I found this article which I think sums up my feelings nicely and also shows the commercial so you can see for yourself. I also agree with his thoughts on the Windows phone commercial too.

http://blogs.trb.com/features/family/parenting/blog/2010/11/2011_highlanders_antifamily_co.html

Life Discipler

I recently received a new product to review called Life Discipler. It really is unlike anything I’ve seen before and kinda cool. It’s a little electronic gadget, about the size of a pedometer, which has more than 1500 verses stored on it arranged on 44 subjects. You can search for subjects and scrolls through the verses or pick a subject and have the alarm sound to remind you to look at another verse.

I thought that it sounded kind of neat when I first got it. Any tool to help me learn God’s word and be constantly immersed in it throughout my day is a good thing. I thought the subjects offered were definitely applicable to life, though not every verse seemed to fit with the subject it was under. I tried it out for about a week, mostly at work. I set the alarm for 1 hour the first day just to get used to it, but I found myself wanting more. So the rest of the week I set it to go off every ½ hour.

This worked great for most of the day. I was loving the reminders from God’s word. It was very encouraging. I loved that you could set a verse that came up as a favorite or as one you want to memorize as well. This will be great when I am waiting in line somewhere and I can just pull out God’s word and work on memorizing or reviewing it. However, sometime during the afternoon the alarm would just stop going off. I checked the battery but it was fine. If I turned it off and on again then it was fine. So that is a quirk that might become annoying if you are expecting it to work for long periods of time. But I guess that’s a small inconvenience.

I don’t know if it’s something I would use everyday, but it did do a great job of keeping God’s truth fresh in my mind. The MSRP is $29.99 and you can find this gadget at lifediscipler.com and Family Christian Stores. Could be a good gift if you know someone into gadgets.

They are offering a 20% discount now at lifediscipler.com if you use the coupon code GROW20. It’s good through Dec 30, 2010.