If ‘Greed is good’ was supposedly the mantra that summed up the 80s, ‘Impatience is a virtue’ is the utterly fatuous and obnoxious effort by an ad agency on behalf of Samsung for the Noughties.
It’s another one of those Trainspotting-style ads that has lots of fast editing and bright young things sashaying around running, shagging and, er, smashing stuff up.
To illustrate just how amazing and cool they are, there’s lots of images of older people being stupid and patient.
The message behind the advert is so empty and meaningless that it’s irritating in itself, even if you ignore the inherent twattiness of the message behind it.
It’s advertising for the Skins generation, only Skins gave every impression of knowing just how bloody awful teenagers and students are these days.
This one seems to suggest that being a total c*** is something to aspire to, and it ignores the fact that civil society is based squarely on virtues like courtesy, honesty, consideration and, yes, patience.
What next? ‘Swearing is clever’? ‘Being drunk is brilliant’? ‘Tolerance is for losers’?
It’s like Clockwork Orange remade with the cast of Hollyoaks. I’m reminded of a quote that always stuck with me from an original review by Alexander Walker of Kubrick’s infamous film:
From it one takes away the fear that our children will kill us all
Watching this ad, I take away the fear that our children will all turn into appalling gormless twats.