Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Say cheese

Alright, so I have to admit, I sort of love Utah.


Growing up I spent many summers getting sunburned between Provo canyon and Utah Lake. My grandparents and all of my remaining extended family are settled in the heartland of those lovable Mormons. I attended the BYU where I found out that there are a lot of different types of people, even if they do profess to believe the same basic thing. I learned about myself and I grew to love the people around me.

However, this last weekend I noticed a new and shocking trend advertised on the omnipresent billboards up and down the freeway. We were in town for my beautiful cousin's wedding and I started to pay attention to the products being pushed.

The first? An ad for a bridal show held at one of the best venues in the valley. They were offering a door prize of a $100,000 dream wedding complete with a picture perfect bride and groom.

The second? Tooth whitening, because heavens knows you can't be happy without the most gleaming white teeth on the block.

The third? An add for a home theater installation company. The words read, "Make the Jones's keep up with you."

The fourth? Plastic surgery. It reminded me of this article published in Forbes about the SLC being the vainest city in America.


These ads placed so close together really got me thinking. Is there an overemphasis on looking and being perfect? Or am I reading too much into this here?




Oh, and please don't be offended in any way if you live in Utah. I'm not saying anything about you personally at all! YOU are cool, great, wonderful and so very awesome!

8 comments:

Ashlynn {mamabear} said...

ooh man - that is pretty bad. I knew it was bad, but had no idea we were that bad!

Maggie said...

My personal favorites were the advertisements for the housing developments. Monsterous houses at monsterous prices.

Chastity said...

So basically Utah is becoming Stepford :).

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is that bad here. I've lived here my whole life but I'm not Mormon. All the girls look alike, almost deathly skinny and trying to out do each other. It's sad, and people wonder why we have the highest anti-depressant use in the country. Duh.

Anonymous said...

The Texas Caesar is GREAT

Anonymous said...

Some days it's best to head the advice of Thumper's mother.

k8 said...

i am a utah girl and sometimes i really miss it there. and then i see stuff like the billboards you are pointing out and i roll my eyes and feel glad i got out. there IS a weird competitive/materialistic vibe there that totally freaks me out.

k said...

my friend just visited her high school friend that went to BYU and they were talking about the same thing. trying to achieve that level of perfection (especially by being so seemingly fake) must be so stressful. but i can see how it would become epidemic-like, each person trying to outdo the last.