How Streaming Video Can Help Preserve What Braincells We Have Left

A little bit over a year ago I ranted  about the local channel TV5 acquiring  the NFL rights and making a mockery of it.  They deprived the local audience of a channel that showed it in High Definition while simultaneously showing us commercials produced locally. Which of course fits into a common narrative here in GRP: anything of quality that pinoys get their hands on is automatically dumbed down.

The incompetence of TV5 permeates into all aspects of their operations. Something as simple as the broadcast schedule on their website for the aforementioned NFL games might be better off bestowed to a 7 year old.

I opened the TV5 website early one Sunday morning to see what playoff games I can hope to see during the NFL Wildcard round. According to their schedule  the best I could have hoped for was a rerun game played on the last week of the regular season featuring the worst team of the year ( Arizona Cardinals).

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I bit the bullet and was able to watch from the first quarter of one of the games that day. Later on the TV5 Twitter feed they were tweeting about what I was watching. Sorry, I have no reason to go back to that dump of a station that can’t even publish correctly what they will show. Makes no sense to pay for the rights to show something and not even bother to promote it to the same people who want to watch it. That is the pinoy way.

There is a thing called the law of unintended consequences. I did something about my hunger for NFL Football that was usually packaged with my aversion of pinoy incompetence . It came at a price. Yet there was this bonus benefit. My faith in humanity was restored. The NFL Gamepass comes with the exact commercials they are showing in real time over FOX, NBC and CBS. After two decades of seeing some pinoy commercials , you have no idea what it is like getting some feeling back in some parts of your brain.

I was going to recommend that others subscribe to NFL Gamepass just for the commercials. They are just that different. Let me be very clear. The target market for pinoy commercials is not very flattering. Then again this nation voted in a president solely because his mom died.

If you ask an NFL fan to name the regular season highlight from this season they will likely say November 19 , 2018 . That was the Monday Night game where the Kansas City Chiefs played the Los Angeles Rams and had fans buzzing for days. The good news was TV5 broadcasted it live in standard definition and with pinoy standard commercials. The rest of the bad news is you had to decipher the end of the game while trying not to get distracted by the split screen of this housewife pleading for pity and tears on one of the Tulfo brothers shows shown on TV5.

Are you a sports channel or are you just a TV channel ? Sports channels usually show the conclusion of the event they are broadcasting. A historical example of a network game not doing this is the infamous Heidi game.  A moment in time so reviled by NFL fans that it made the History Channel website . It was never done again. If scorned housewives are your bread and butter TV5 then why did you bother buying the rights for sporting events?? You are as dumb as the commercials that you show, but we already knew that. Then again that comes with catering to the low standards of PBA fans. 

Around the same time I was contemplating how to write this piece, a friend of mine was posting in his social media what a worthwhile watch Sad Hill Unearthed was.  It is basically a documentary of a particular scene in the Clint Eastwood western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. So I went on Google to look for options to view this . The only viable choice was Netflix.

Netflix is not a library of every TV show and every movie ever shown. It is still this deep collection of TV shows from different eras that I have not fully explored yet. My favorites from the last decade are there like Dexter and Breaking Bad.  A classic  movie from my youth Jaws was there. We all have our different tastes but there should be enough variety to keep you going for a while. If you eventually run out of what you want to watch maybe their new productions will still catch your eye. Most important feature? No pinoy commercials- check!!!

Netflix may not be everything you ever wanted under one roof but with TV series alone it has a lot. All the William Shatner and Patrick Stewart Star Treks, Friends are among the older shows. The newer shows ( some Netflix productions) Ozark, Titans, Daredevil , Narcos, Flash and Peaky Blinders. I really hope we have this forever: a service brought to you by pinoys locally but with no pinoy mind numbing commercials or any commercials for that matter.   The secret to enjoying TV is zero pinoy content like in Netflix.

The phrase cut the cord is nothing new. Pinoy commercials that either rot your brain or hamper a young brain from developing is nothing new either. People who have spent time abroad and watched commercials that do not talk down to you may already know what I am talking about . Those of you who do not, please watch a few of these commercials that the US networks show to help finance the NFL product. Can you honestly tell me they are not a welcome relief from what the local stations show ? Or will you be that proud to be pinoy type that will tell me pinoy commercials are as good or even better???

I believe that mass media is indicative of the society it wants to appeal to. Pinoy commercials are made by baduy creators in order to sell baduy products to baduy consumers who get turned on by baduy shows. The opposite of baduy is dignified. Dignity is a concept so foreign to the tambays who love local noon time shows. You ask the smart guy in a baduy barkada what is dignity and they will answer ” the little boat you keep on a big boat. ” I am sure you have seen local and foreign productions that may be produced on shoestring budget yet were not lacking in dignity. I show you the US commercials I saw watching NFL games live because the dignity disparity should be dramatic.   When you avail of something like Netflix, you may appreciate no commercials is a better option than  mind numbing pinoy commercials. At the very least you can see how harmful pinoy commercials are to your brain cells in context.

 

Let’s start with a little bit of self promotion. This is meant to get people in the mood or even more excited for the NFL playoffs. It is also a glimpse into Americana.

 

This ad for Taco Bell is a visual treat. Immerse yourself!!

 

 

I can’t help but think what this ad would look like if the backdrop was a PBA game.

 

 

This commercial is genius. Sadly it stresses a very pinoy characteristic. The pwede na  yan mentality. It was meant to describe mediocre competition. Weird how it describes the pinoy attitude many of us see everyday in our media and our communities.

 

Not only is this a good ad but remember how pinoys love to play the genetic victim card? Drew Brees is a future Hall of Famer in the most popular sport in the US. He is “only” 6 feet tall.

 

This is a fascinating commercial for the Iphone Retina. Either there was a really large cast for this or great CGI. That is a lot of color, coordination, acrobatics and skill. Reminds me of a typical Pinoy Ako blog.

 

This is a combination I never thought I would encounter. Two current NFL players and cupcakes. It is actually a commercial for the Microsoft Surface Pro.

 

 

When you watch an NFL game there are no shortage of pickup commercials . Some of them can be as cool as this one. Like many great ads , there is this theme of everybody diverse coming together. If you have been watching the videos,  I don’t blame you for thinking of the amount of royalties the composer of this song has been raking in during the NFL Playoffs. 

 

 

This SUV commercial of course is trying to tug at the sentimentality of fatherhood.

 

 

I will be very shocked if anybody under 45 gets this reference. You have to be a fossil like me or a hardcore Mormon. Still it gives you a myriad of locations, situations and demographics all set to lyrics and a melody  from a better , vanished time.

 

 

There is something to be said for a fast food commercial that has zero pretense of appealing to your health and discipline .

 

 

 

 

 

Some other commercials  I saw with my NFL package  :

• This one talks about the NFL trying to deal with the concussion issue.
• This commercial is for a high tech security doorbells.
• An ad for accountant services.
• A cool car commercial.
• A distinctive look to a beer commercial 
• A great commercial for car insurance.