6 ms·

It's such a memorable ad. It's like the dream of a child actually brought to life. I've seen this story discussed around the internet over the last few days an

It's such a memorable ad. It's like the dream of a child actually brought to life. I've seen this story discussed around the internet over the last few days and found it interesting how younger generations seemed to only view it negatively (pollution, excess, etc). It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now.

pjc50 2y ago
General thing of the internet, really. We've all become used to being rewarded for negativity and critique.
- Clamchop 2y ago
  There's some irony in this comment. It's also a textbook ad hominem. I love the ad and the stunt. I would have been as giddy as a child if I'd seen it in person. It's also rings true to me that it's rather wasteful and destructive in service of selling TVs. Shrug, what's done is done so I'm free to enjoy it guilt-free while also thinking we probably shouldn't do stunts like this anymore.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Seems cool enough to me that it should have been done independent of selling TVs. I don't think it is wasteful, and to the extent it was destructive, it was well worth it. We should encourage and welcome more of this, not less. How it is funded does not diminish this, IMO.
    - Clamchop 2y ago
      Pardon me if "it looked cool" isn't persuasive.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        To each their own. I hope there is something that sparks joy for you.
        Clamchop 2y ago
        I already admitted that this brings me joy. I love things like this. It's just not a very persuasive argument, even when I make it to myself, because I believe so strongly that other things are more important.
bondarchuk 2y ago
Advertising is a cancer on society, just 'cause it's sometimes nice to look at doesn't really change that. IMHO of course.
- basisword 2y ago
  I'm quite certain a fun video for a Sony Bravia TV from 20 years ago is not comparable to cancer in any way. It's ok to be happy from time to time :)
  - mostlysimilar 2y ago
    Not sure if I'd call the relentless assault on my attention to convince me to purchase things "happy", but to each their own.
    - vincnetas 2y ago
      what is your preferred (ideal) way of being informed about possible beneficial proposals? ps i also hate ads and attention economy.
      - ok_dad 2y ago
        At this point in my life, I've realized that anything they advertise that is actually a new thing (not a TV or a toaster with slightly better features) is just going to be some consumable or gadget that I don't want or need. Most advertising I see is just for some soda or electronics brand which I already know about and do not want to buy. I don't think I could name a single ad that I've seen that is for a genuinely new product or service that was useful enough to me that I thought, "thank god they showed me this ad!"
        foobarian 2y ago
        I've actually seen multiple such ads in the past year on Youtube. I found myself surprised to actually want to see it to the end while hovering over the Skip button. One was a bed Heater/Cooler gadget, another an ultrasonic cutter. There were also some doozies, like these "model v8 engines" that work very hard to hide the fact that they are powered by electric motors. We'll see how this year goes.
JohnFen 2y ago
This is the first time I'd ever heard of or seen that ad. I guess my efforts to avoid advertising work really well, hooray! It is visually stunning for sure, but I have to not think too hard about the implications of it.
- fckgw 2y ago
  It never aired in the US so that could be one reason.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    Could be. Although that was well after I stopped watching television, so if it didn't appear as an online ad, I wouldn't have seen it no matter what.
II2II 2y ago
Don't get me wrong: as a piece of advertising, this is one of the few I would be willing to watch again. On the other hand, I am left asking: what is the point? It is not as though there were many venues where you could enjoy the vibrance of it. It certainly looks better on my modern monitors than on my Bravia TV of that era. As for children, I would be strongly opposed to showing a child that commercial. It isn't hard to imagine them trying to haul buckets of bouncy balls to the roof after being ... inspired.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Seems like hyperactive concern to me. I would want my child climbing up on the roof with a bucket of bouncy balls. I would even buy them.
  - jacobgkau 2y ago
    Better a child dump a bucket of bouncy balls off the roof supervised than unsupervised, right?
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Sure, depending on the age. 5-6 is prime tree climbing age, at which time they should be fine to go up themselves.
  - xattt 2y ago
    Forgot the /s
pj_mukh 2y ago
“I think our bill was $74,000 on broken windows,” said Ranahan. “And the crazy thing is, everyone loved it. The people, the neighborhood, they still come out to me and talk to me about it.” "We want to set City Hall on fire, we want to bump a blimp into the Golden Gate Bridge and we want to jump a hook-and-ladder truck over Lefty O’Doul Bridge with Roger Moore on it’ … and they were seriously like, ‘OK.’” My main question is, where did this San Francisco go? I'd love for the city to create more memorable moments because the city is special. But today, this ad would've been buried in CEQA lawsuits. Hell, parking in the wrong public spot could get your car keyed by some irate millionaire[1]. [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/parking-wars-sf-billionaires-row-20208640.php https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/parking-wars-sf-billion...
- kurthr 2y ago
  First the dotcom boom pushed the artists out to Oakland by 2000, but there were still burners and hipsters in 2005. Then the subprime boom/bust took a lot of the hipsters and older businesses out, but the tech busses brought the Silicon Valley nerds in 2010. Then the rise of Uber startups through 2016 pushed the artists into warehouses until the Ghostship fire, but there were still techbros and crypto in the Mission. When the pandemic finally came for the rest of Frisco there was hardly anyone left who cared or they were so old they wanted everyone else to just leave. If you remember Market street and the Tenderloin from the old days, the tents today are kinda quaint. I'm sure somebody has a similar timeline for NYC.
- Tade0 2y ago
  I would have so much fun doing various kinds of tit-for-tats with this guy. That is until he, inevitably, would shoot me with impunity.
- asdf6969 2y ago
  Only boring people can afford to live in SF
jjulius 2y ago
>It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now. This happens frequently for a good many things. Collective ignorance gets replaced with the lens of hindsight.
- xattt 2y ago
  > Collective ignorance… … and there it is. People knew but saw through it all to just maybe enjoy the wonder of the event.
  - anal_reactor 2y ago
    I feel like the current generation will be remembered in the history as "the generation of sad fucks". It's incredibly difficult to escape the overwhelming sense of doom, but sometimes I have moments when I watch the sunset and think "this is cool", or listen to the music and feel comfy.
    - xattt 2y ago
      This might be usual teenage apathy mixing with rage-bait seeping out into the real world.
officeplant 2y ago
Just a side point from the article >When Conner was checking in to his hotel later that night, a ball bounced by on the sidewalk. He was 4 or 5 miles away. I have to assume there was so many they never found just left to the ecosystem. As much as I loved bouncy balls as an 80s kid, anytime I see them now it just reminds me of the sheer amount of useless plastic/rubber waste we produce. Even if bouncy balls in and of themselves are a tiny portion of that overall waste. For example I live in the South, Mardi Gras is huge here and after every parade it looks like a god damn war zone of trash and waste left behind for prison labor to clean up as best they can. If it was me I would do a ban on plastic beads entirely as throwable parade objects. > It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now. IMO at some point we all have to look back at the reality of past actions and be cognizant of our waste and abuse of the planet even if it was a fun time.
- timewizard 2y ago
  > As much as I loved bouncy balls as an 80s kid, anytime I see them now it just reminds me of the sheer amount of useless plastic/rubber waste we produce. They're not useless. As you've just pointed out you enjoyed them as a kid. For a few cents in plastic how many hours of enjoyment did you get? What was wasted here? > after every parade it looks like a god damn war zone Yea but when you stack up the tax receipts it suddenly looks very worthwhile. > reality of past actions and be cognizant of our waste and abuse of the planet even if it was a fun time. Humans are always going to want to have fun. From my point of view have all the plastic beads you want. It's the nuclear weapons and daily war that gives me pause.
  - officeplant 2y ago
    >Yea but when you stack up the tax receipts it suddenly looks very worthwhile. Bleak reminder that I will never jive with the general vibes of HN and the VC trash types polluting the world for a tax write-off.
    - jacobgkau 2y ago
      I can understand your sentiment, but to be fair, he wasn't talking about write-offs, at least how I read it. He was talking about tax revenue generated by the production and sale of those "pollutants." Revenue generation via people paying taxes on things is kind of the opposite of write-offs.
losvedir 2y ago
Wow, as someone with vivid and fond memories of watching this in college, I'm seeing this in this very thread. Kinda wild, and really makes me feel old and out of touch. And that heartbeats song is a banger and will forever take me back.
Affric 2y ago
Yeah, it’s interesting that they have no motivation to separate the art from the commission nor any attempt to understand that it was a very different time. Broadcast television and low bandwidths. The idea that advertising is a “cancer upon society” fundamentally misunderstands how mass media, telecommunications, and modern society works. It’s about passing and sharing information. I hate most ads and almost all modern advertising sucks. But this ad ain’t it. It relies on nostalgia, a dream like element. The amount of pollution is, globally, negligible, and they largely cleaned them up. We hear stories of people keeping balls as mementi [1]. Call me cynical but if we are not meant to enjoy even the aesthetically pleasing stuff the neoliberal environmental disaster of the last 40 years creates we are in for a bad time. May as well go back to hunter gathering of subsistence farming. [1] I know it’s non standard but if “octopi” is cromulent then so is “mementi”
asdf6969 2y ago
> younger generations seemed to only view it negatively I’m too young to remember this ad but I’m disgusted by it now. I hate advertising to begin with but this one floods the street with plastic which destroys private property and will never get cleaned up. What is there to like about it? How was this ever allowed? Imagine today I make an ad about dumping red 40 into the Mississippi River for a Netflix show. It’s evil and everyone knows it.

pjc50 2y ago

General thing of the internet, really. We've all become used to being rewarded for negativity and critique.

Clamchop 2y ago
There's some irony in this comment. It's also a textbook ad hominem. I love the ad and the stunt. I would have been as giddy as a child if I'd seen it in person. It's also rings true to me that it's rather wasteful and destructive in service of selling TVs. Shrug, what's done is done so I'm free to enjoy it guilt-free while also thinking we probably shouldn't do stunts like this anymore.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Seems cool enough to me that it should have been done independent of selling TVs. I don't think it is wasteful, and to the extent it was destructive, it was well worth it. We should encourage and welcome more of this, not less. How it is funded does not diminish this, IMO.
  - Clamchop 2y ago
    Pardon me if "it looked cool" isn't persuasive.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      To each their own. I hope there is something that sparks joy for you.
      - Clamchop 2y ago
        I already admitted that this brings me joy. I love things like this. It's just not a very persuasive argument, even when I make it to myself, because I believe so strongly that other things are more important.

bondarchuk 2y ago

Advertising is a cancer on society, just 'cause it's sometimes nice to look at doesn't really change that. IMHO of course.

basisword 2y ago
I'm quite certain a fun video for a Sony Bravia TV from 20 years ago is not comparable to cancer in any way. It's ok to be happy from time to time :)
- mostlysimilar 2y ago
  Not sure if I'd call the relentless assault on my attention to convince me to purchase things "happy", but to each their own.
  - vincnetas 2y ago
    what is your preferred (ideal) way of being informed about possible beneficial proposals? ps i also hate ads and attention economy.
    - ok_dad 2y ago
      At this point in my life, I've realized that anything they advertise that is actually a new thing (not a TV or a toaster with slightly better features) is just going to be some consumable or gadget that I don't want or need. Most advertising I see is just for some soda or electronics brand which I already know about and do not want to buy. I don't think I could name a single ad that I've seen that is for a genuinely new product or service that was useful enough to me that I thought, "thank god they showed me this ad!"
      - foobarian 2y ago
        I've actually seen multiple such ads in the past year on Youtube. I found myself surprised to actually want to see it to the end while hovering over the Skip button. One was a bed Heater/Cooler gadget, another an ultrasonic cutter. There were also some doozies, like these "model v8 engines" that work very hard to hide the fact that they are powered by electric motors. We'll see how this year goes.

JohnFen 2y ago

This is the first time I'd ever heard of or seen that ad. I guess my efforts to avoid advertising work really well, hooray! It is visually stunning for sure, but I have to not think too hard about the implications of it.

fckgw 2y ago
It never aired in the US so that could be one reason.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  Could be. Although that was well after I stopped watching television, so if it didn't appear as an online ad, I wouldn't have seen it no matter what.

II2II 2y ago

Don't get me wrong: as a piece of advertising, this is one of the few I would be willing to watch again. On the other hand, I am left asking: what is the point? It is not as though there were many venues where you could enjoy the vibrance of it. It certainly looks better on my modern monitors than on my Bravia TV of that era. As for children, I would be strongly opposed to showing a child that commercial. It isn't hard to imagine them trying to haul buckets of bouncy balls to the roof after being ... inspired.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Seems like hyperactive concern to me. I would want my child climbing up on the roof with a bucket of bouncy balls. I would even buy them.
- jacobgkau 2y ago
  Better a child dump a bucket of bouncy balls off the roof supervised than unsupervised, right?
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Sure, depending on the age. 5-6 is prime tree climbing age, at which time they should be fine to go up themselves.
- xattt 2y ago
  Forgot the /s

pj_mukh 2y ago

“I think our bill was $74,000 on broken windows,” said Ranahan. “And the crazy thing is, everyone loved it. The people, the neighborhood, they still come out to me and talk to me about it.” "We want to set City Hall on fire, we want to bump a blimp into the Golden Gate Bridge and we want to jump a hook-and-ladder truck over Lefty O’Doul Bridge with Roger Moore on it’ … and they were seriously like, ‘OK.’” My main question is, where did this San Francisco go? I'd love for the city to create more memorable moments because the city is special. But today, this ad would've been buried in CEQA lawsuits. Hell, parking in the wrong public spot could get your car keyed by some irate millionaire[1]. [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/parking-wars-sf-billionaires-row-20208640.php https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/parking-wars-sf-billion...

kurthr 2y ago
First the dotcom boom pushed the artists out to Oakland by 2000, but there were still burners and hipsters in 2005. Then the subprime boom/bust took a lot of the hipsters and older businesses out, but the tech busses brought the Silicon Valley nerds in 2010. Then the rise of Uber startups through 2016 pushed the artists into warehouses until the Ghostship fire, but there were still techbros and crypto in the Mission. When the pandemic finally came for the rest of Frisco there was hardly anyone left who cared or they were so old they wanted everyone else to just leave. If you remember Market street and the Tenderloin from the old days, the tents today are kinda quaint. I'm sure somebody has a similar timeline for NYC.
Tade0 2y ago
I would have so much fun doing various kinds of tit-for-tats with this guy. That is until he, inevitably, would shoot me with impunity.
asdf6969 2y ago
Only boring people can afford to live in SF

jjulius 2y ago

>It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now. This happens frequently for a good many things. Collective ignorance gets replaced with the lens of hindsight.

xattt 2y ago
> Collective ignorance… … and there it is. People knew but saw through it all to just maybe enjoy the wonder of the event.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  I feel like the current generation will be remembered in the history as "the generation of sad fucks". It's incredibly difficult to escape the overwhelming sense of doom, but sometimes I have moments when I watch the sunset and think "this is cool", or listen to the music and feel comfy.
  - xattt 2y ago
    This might be usual teenage apathy mixing with rage-bait seeping out into the real world.

officeplant 2y ago

Just a side point from the article >When Conner was checking in to his hotel later that night, a ball bounced by on the sidewalk. He was 4 or 5 miles away. I have to assume there was so many they never found just left to the ecosystem. As much as I loved bouncy balls as an 80s kid, anytime I see them now it just reminds me of the sheer amount of useless plastic/rubber waste we produce. Even if bouncy balls in and of themselves are a tiny portion of that overall waste. For example I live in the South, Mardi Gras is huge here and after every parade it looks like a god damn war zone of trash and waste left behind for prison labor to clean up as best they can. If it was me I would do a ban on plastic beads entirely as throwable parade objects. > It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now. IMO at some point we all have to look back at the reality of past actions and be cognizant of our waste and abuse of the planet even if it was a fun time.

timewizard 2y ago
> As much as I loved bouncy balls as an 80s kid, anytime I see them now it just reminds me of the sheer amount of useless plastic/rubber waste we produce. They're not useless. As you've just pointed out you enjoyed them as a kid. For a few cents in plastic how many hours of enjoyment did you get? What was wasted here? > after every parade it looks like a god damn war zone Yea but when you stack up the tax receipts it suddenly looks very worthwhile. > reality of past actions and be cognizant of our waste and abuse of the planet even if it was a fun time. Humans are always going to want to have fun. From my point of view have all the plastic beads you want. It's the nuclear weapons and daily war that gives me pause.
- officeplant 2y ago
  >Yea but when you stack up the tax receipts it suddenly looks very worthwhile. Bleak reminder that I will never jive with the general vibes of HN and the VC trash types polluting the world for a tax write-off.
  - jacobgkau 2y ago
    I can understand your sentiment, but to be fair, he wasn't talking about write-offs, at least how I read it. He was talking about tax revenue generated by the production and sale of those "pollutants." Revenue generation via people paying taxes on things is kind of the opposite of write-offs.

losvedir 2y ago

Wow, as someone with vivid and fond memories of watching this in college, I'm seeing this in this very thread. Kinda wild, and really makes me feel old and out of touch. And that heartbeats song is a banger and will forever take me back.

Affric 2y ago

Yeah, it’s interesting that they have no motivation to separate the art from the commission nor any attempt to understand that it was a very different time. Broadcast television and low bandwidths. The idea that advertising is a “cancer upon society” fundamentally misunderstands how mass media, telecommunications, and modern society works. It’s about passing and sharing information. I hate most ads and almost all modern advertising sucks. But this ad ain’t it. It relies on nostalgia, a dream like element. The amount of pollution is, globally, negligible, and they largely cleaned them up. We hear stories of people keeping balls as mementi [1]. Call me cynical but if we are not meant to enjoy even the aesthetically pleasing stuff the neoliberal environmental disaster of the last 40 years creates we are in for a bad time. May as well go back to hunter gathering of subsistence farming. [1] I know it’s non standard but if “octopi” is cromulent then so is “mementi”

asdf6969 2y ago

> younger generations seemed to only view it negatively I’m too young to remember this ad but I’m disgusted by it now. I hate advertising to begin with but this one floods the street with plastic which destroys private property and will never get cleaned up. What is there to like about it? How was this ever allowed? Imagine today I make an ad about dumping red 40 into the Mississippi River for a Netflix show. It’s evil and everyone knows it.