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Sleepless in Grand Rapids

Last night I couldn't get to sleep no matter how hard I tried. Again, it was one of those times where I couldn't shut my mind off. It also might have had something to do with how hot it was outside. All I could do was lay there. I didn't even feel like turning on my TV. It was around 3 o'clock in the morning and I knew what would be on, the oh so wonderful infomercial.

I have determined that there are specific categories of infomercials. The most prevalent of these categories is the exercise or fitness related infomercial. They consist of a group of overly energetic smiling sweaty people. Their goal is to make you believe that if you work out for only 30 minutes a week as hard as you possibly can, then you can eat whenever you want with no consequences to speak of. Another kind of fitness related infomercial is the one that tries to sell its audience exercise equipment. I think these are the ones that make me the angriest because I swear that I've seen some of these "real live customers" inside the pages of Men's Health magazine.

The next type of infomercial out there are the "food" themed ones these infomercials make the American public almost totally inept.  They make slicing potato look like the most challenging thing in the world. What I want to know is, why do advertisers have to make people feel bad about themselves in order to sell a product? It seems like there should be an easier way to go about things. It occurs to me well writing this, that these are the kind of topics I contemplate well trying to go to sleep. Then I realized that it was no wonder that I couldn't go to sleep. Thinking about the manipulative nature of the American advertising industry would turn anybody into a complete insomniac.

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