Why I Hate the New Visa Check Card Television Commercials

A series of new commercials advertising the Visa check card are currently circulating on television. These commercials depict customers in a retail outlet such as a coffee shop or garden center moving in unison, as if they are part of some sort of performance art, around the store. Music is playing and the customers are grabbing what they need and checking out using their Visa check cards to pay. Each customer whizzes through the check out in no time, and continues on in one fluid motion. Then it happens. Someone either pays with cash, or chooses to write a check. The music slows to a halt, the other customers stare rudely, and the cashier acts as if the paying customer is a complete idiot. As the paying idiot leaves, the musical can finally resume production.

I hate these commercials. Why do I loathe them so much? It's simple; they take so much about what I despise about American consumer behavior and glorify it as if it is the best way to live. First of all, the customers are moving about the store as quickly as possible. Everyone is rushing around as if they are on an assembly line gathering their goods. If one person messes up, the entire system will be ruined. In the rush to get in and out, a customer "gums up the works" by paying with cash or a check. The other customers, and even the cashier, flash rude glances. The fact that not only is our society in fast forward so much of the time, but also that one person's time is more valuable than another's irks me to no end. These advertisements suggest that it is okay for both patrons and employees to berate anyone who dares to take a little longer to finish a transaction. Heaven forbid anyone has to wait in a line 23 seconds longer. The idea that faster is better is one that sits right in the front of American's brains.