Watch 'Em While You're High

Advertisers tend to know their target audiences – how to get their blood pumping, their mouths watering, and their Youtube search engines running. Commercials are designed to provoke an emotional or physical reaction in the viewer, and they're no fun when you’re obviously not part of the target audience (Magical Disney Family Cruises, Viagra). However, it can be entertaining to sit back and watch a commercial that's meant for someone else. Like earlier this week, I was mid-episode of Modern Family, suffering through one of those forced commercial breaks, when an Axe commercial came on that was definitely targeting dudes. It was funny, and I watched with smug detachment.

One of the most frequently overlooked, but substantially large commercial-viewing demographics is Stoners. The beautiful thing about Stoners is that (almost) every commercial is meant for them. When you’re high, a ten-second, digital close-up of microbes being demolished by some Febreeze-wieldin’ housewife can feel utterly profound. Raisin Bran looks infinitely delectable. The Bachelorette is literally the funniest show to ever grace reality TV. But while 99.9% of commercials may appeal to Stoners, they can be sorted into three distinct categories: Intentionally Interesting, Accidentally Fascinating, and Slyly Mesmerizing.

In recent years, the first category (Intentionally Interesting to Stoners) seems to be largely going out of style. In the seventies, I guess advertisers expected the vast majority of their viewers to be slouchily sucking down jays while they watched TV, because even Rice Krispies commercials were obscenely trippy. But Levi’s Jeans (our good ol’ fashioned American Co) might just win the prize for Best Commercial to Watch While High.

One slightly more recent example of Intentionally Interesting is the Carlton Blonde Beer commercial. However, if you’re of the Stoner variety that gets more-than-kinda paranoid, it may cause you to feel unduly anxious that the world is unravelling. The classic Sony Bravia commercial, (otherwise known as "the ball commercial,") comes across like the brainchild of a bunch of weed lovin' graphic designers with a penchant for indie rock. At the very least, it’s relaxing; on a good high, it feels spiritual.

Lately, the Accidentally Fascinating to Stoners category seems to be on the rise. These are commercials that are mildly interesting to the general public, but that feel terrifying, euphoric or intriguing when you’re high. For instance, there's the apocalyptic feeling that hits you when you're watching Pepsi’s Shaq Attack commercial. The plot goes like this: Pepsi-drinkers in various locales around the globe stare in shock and desperation as their Pepsi bottles drain mysteriously in front of their eyes, presumably into some invisible cosmic sinkhole. You're waiting in shoulder-tensed agony for a cataclysmic clincher -- so when the commercial ends with the suggestion, "Be Young, Have Fun," it feels like some kinda SICK JOKE.

In a similar vein, there's the Duracell Batteries Ultra Lithium commercial, in which a horde of pink bunnies morph en masse into an aggressive monster-giant comprised entirely of living, screaming bunny-faces. I'm pretty sure this commercial is scary to the average viewing-audience, but if you’re high, it could make you want to lie down in an empty bathtub, turn off the lights and cry/ write poems about the coercive mechanisms of capitalism.

Slyly Mesmerizing is perhaps the most sinister category -- a reminder that, yes, advertisers really, really know what they’re doing. Not only do these commercials seem perfectly unsuspicious to a regular viewing audience, they may even appear innocent to a True Stoner during rare moments of sobriety. But if you're peering at the commercial through weed-stained eyes and droopy lids, the subliminal messages come screaming off the screen. For example, one of Taco Bell’s recent commercials looks pretty regular – a dude at a fancy restaurant who really just wants a burrito – when all of a sudden, a dancing spiral of meat explodes into the background, twisting and gyrating, eight feet tall and oozing with delicious, rhythmic grease. Sure, it’s only up there for two seconds. But if you’re high, it's a mind-bomb that will explode half an hour later when you're careering through red lights on your way toward some Late Nite TB.

Of course, the exploitation of marijuana-induced consumer vulnerability is nothing new. The older Taco Bell commercials were even more shamelessly manipulative. For a list of great hypothetical weed ads, check out this article by blogger Tess Lynch at Good Health, where she invented a few perfect commercials for stoners. And Watch Responsibly!