70 Years Later

I have a new favorite commercial.

I meant to write about this when it first came out back during the Super Bowl, but it sort of slipped my mind. But what do I like about this? It's hilarious, in a twisted sort of way. Think about it. Lots of angry Japanese and German people banging their fists and screaming. It's sort of like parts of this video (which appears to be a pretty slick school project - the beginning is sort of amusing, though the similarity that I'm talking about starts at 1:07 in).

I suppose that 70 years later, we start to forget about these things. But I have a suspicion that our South Korean friends are trying to remind the American public about who we're getting in bed with when we buy Toyota and BMW: angry dudes who yell a lot and may or may not try to take over the world. What's interesting is that, at least from what I understand about cross-cultural psychology (which is next to nothing), Koreans are notoriously xenophobic, and lament the bastardization of of their lineage by rural men who takes wives from poor Asian countries, and thus create all of these half-breed children. So it could also be that the folks at Hyundai are subconsciously conveying their admiration for the old-school German-style screaming.

Or more likely, I just enjoy propaganda, and thought that this commercial felt like old-school propaganda.

-Chairman