Wiped out

Toyota has a new commercial where they spotlight (I'm not kidding) the one/fifth of a second that one saves without having to turn on the windshield wipers manually, as the car detects rain striking it and turns on the wipers on its own. One/fifth of a second. They show very, very brief glimpses of what one could do with that saved time, pleasant activities flash by in increments I presume last 20% of a second.

Thank goodness for modern technology.

All I can wonder is: Are they trying to be ironic in ads now? They play it so straight; it seems like they really wanted to tout the new feature. And I'm not in the advertising game, but I have to think that appealing to the irony-loving demographic is not worth running in a nationwide campaign for a major automobile company.

And these ads wouldn't appeal to mere irony-lovers; these ads would have to appeal to those who are also nihilistically self-absorbed and don't give a crap about the hybrids that Toyota can't build fast enough. Or maybe that's just a demographic that Toyota hopes exists in order to move their other cars.

Or maybe they're hoping that stupid people with lots of money won't pay too much attention. I mean, in my experience it takes several seconds, depending on how heavy the rain is, for there to be enough moisture on the windshield for there to be anything for the wiper to, uh, wipe. Otherwise it just scrapes across the glass, making that screech that makes one wish it were only fingernails on a chalkboard. Thus, I'd wonder how long it takes for the car to stop the wipers on its own (which is not mentioned in the spot).

This is why I take public transportation.