At first you think these little rectangles are amusing because they offer monogrammed sweaters and self-publishing opportunities—things that are undoubtedly funny, in a sad, Skymall sort of way. But sometimes the funny sadness goes deeper than that, like the sadness of “unique diamond fish jewelry” for $15,000. And then sometimes you are plunged so deep into these ads, you wish there was a German word, or school of social thought, that could sufficiently describe the experience. Behold, the right-hand column of page 77 in April 30th’s New Yorker. Here we blatantly have bedroom adventure gear right next to farming teens, and then two ads for posh rehabilitation. The first rehab offers an “elegantly appointed environment” directed, you would have to say, at old money. The second one is secondchancesforteens.com. Above these ads are ones for pearl puddles, “not your father’s safari jacket,” more blazers (this time from Hunter and Coggins), and more treatment—unparalleled treatment, even—for “co-occurring disorders.” We know that this co-occurring combination has not been created by some wacky inhuman algorithm that has no idea about homonyms and the like. The New Yorker doesn’t have a masthead, but I think we can assume their layout is overseen by humans. Neither is this the result of failing public education systems, or the decline of print media, or even the oft-referenced ignorance of the “flyover” states. Ladies and gentlemen, this is straight from the pages of the New Yorker. The weird thing—you realize, flipping skeptically back to the other pages—is how all the carefully placed (and you thought, “understated”) doodles have actually been leading up to this bizarre Upper East Side marketing orgy. You’re following some cute glyph about smoking, then one about stationery, then dirty dishes and some mischievous cat—then it’s suddenly “Not your father’s safari jacket” followed by pearl puddles, LIBERATOR dildos, Quaker teens, rehab, troubled teens, and more jackets. It’s like a mini-Buñuel movie! And they expect you to keep following along with Malcolm Gladwell, or whoever it is, over there to the left? Why would you? You want to shout, Hey Malcolm, can you shut up about Twitter and explain the neo-surrealist montage unfolding perversely in the margins? Hard to picture one person with these particular needs, but let’s have another look. Taken in order, it could definitely be that the guy gets out of rehab at Fernside—you picture him hiking through the ferns, there at his side—wearing not his father’s safari jacket, and maybe the pearl puddle earrings (a gift) are in his pocket, along with some (discreetly packaged) LIBERATOR gear; he happens, on his way west, to visit the farming teens—who don’t really look 15 to 17, it should be pointed out—then one woodsy thing leads to another and he’s right back in rehab; fortunately this time he’s “in an elegantly appointed environment,” and the poor organic teen, for her part, goes to secondchancesforteens.com (nearby, but also far enough away, “in the Catskills”); at this point, we lose track of her, but our New Yorker–subscribing protagonist, when he gets out, prudently opts for a more conservative, non-safari type jacket, from Hunter and Coggins, in Asheville, “which were $195, now $165.” Nice choice, you’d have to say, given all that’s happened. But it’s madness to read those ads like that.
by Dushko Petrovich, N+1 | Read more:
Image: uncredited
