Yes…that’s right. Blah blah blah, buy Vicks, dummy…blah blah blah, Vicks, blah blah, Adult, blah blah, formula, blah, you’re under, blah, my, blah, command, blah, blah blah…

Sure, Vicks might help you to feel better.  But is it medicine?  It’s mostly alcohol.  It’s the same stuff parents have been giving their kids (or themselves) for years to keep them quiet and peaceful while the cold wages war in their body.

You can drink Vicks, or you can drink something tastier…a hot toddy, perhaps.

I’m not saying this with absolute certainty, so don’t quote me.  But I’ve never seen any scientific validation for Vicks.  Or for any cold medicine, for that matter.

Have you?

If it’s out there, please send it to me.  This article seems like a fairly good summary of the research, and ends up saying that over-the-counter drugs have no effect versus traditional (or any other) methods for treating the common cold.

So why Vicks?  And why a guy who is not a doctor, but plays one on TV?

Well, it’s the same reason your running shoes exist.  There’s no scientific (or other…except cultural) validation for those, either. Also see this article.

Neither, in fact, is your choice of a hybrid vehicle.  When you total the costs of design, production, shipment, etc., of your hybrid, you come up with something that is probably a little more expensive than the car you’re driving now.

Let alone the fact that a hybrid is made predominantly of plastic (hi, petroleum product, doesn’t degrade, chokes the oceans), still uses gas (albeit less…though probably insignificantly less), has a ton of batteries in it (can’t just throw those out), uses tires made of rubber (that’s a petroleum product too) and has oil that needs to be changed just like a regular car.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rNYzSH-BA&hl=en&fs=1&]

I don’t want to piss on your candle, but it’s time to wake up.  The auto industry is as interested in saving the world at their expense as a tiger is.  That’s right.  A tiger.  You can’t even communicate the concept of “saving the world” to a tiger. Try communicating it to an industry.

So what am I saying?
All of these things have something in common.  Your running shoes exist because Nike figured out how to create a market for something non-essential.  The same thing Starbucks Coffee did.  The same thing the auto-makers do now.  The same thing Vicks cough syrup does.  The same thing your local gym does (you don’t need a gym to work out…you don’t need a treadmill to run, you don’t need any of that crap, and in fact, you’d be much healthier/more fit without it).

They create the feeling in you of need, that doesn’t truly exist, in order to get you to buy something.

“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV,” is pure genius.  First, he’s being honest, albeit in a smarmy way.  Then, he’s a face you (or your mother, who watches the soap opera he’s on, and who buys the groceries/cold medicines for your house) recognize.  Finally, he represents the concept “doctor.”  He says the word.  You look at him and think “doctor.”  He plays one.  He is a nice guy.  He’s trying to help me.

He’s trying to help me to buy something with red food coloring, with possibly toxic substances, bottled in a plastic shell that will choke the oceans – the source of life on this planet – forever.

Stop.

Stop watching TV.

Stop believing what people are selling you.

Stop buying shit.  I mean, anything.  Buy food.  That’s good.  Try to get food that’s not been run through a petroleum-powered processing plant, or grown on a petroleum-farmed field, or pumped full of Vicks cough-syrup because it’s crammed into pens tighter than your office cube.

Start thinking.

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