Celebrex May Lead to Death, or Just Tripping Out

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This may be the weirdest commercial I’ve ever seen. I just saw it for the first time last night during Olbermann, and I was dumbfounded. It’s apparently a spot for Celebrex, and I had to look it up afterwards to find out that it’s a pain reliever, because I was so hypnotized by the visual effects I had no idea what was going on. First, there’s the weirdly creepy “all the lines turn out to be text” effect, which you don’t notice right away. It’s very cool technically, and quite beautiful, but kind of has “Big Brother/Matrix” overtones, like, “everything in the world is made of fine print!” Then, out of nowhere, the voice-over gal says something like, “Celebrex may lead to heart attack, which can lead to death.” Death? What?! That’s bad, right? Is that in the fine print somewhere along the side of the coffee cup? But, thankfully, there’s a lovely ambient acoustic guitar soundtrack—reminiscent of, I dunno, Air’s “Cherry Blossom Girl” (link NSFW)—that lulls you back into a state of tripped-out bliss. Look at all the bubbles.. they’re made of words! So pretty! And it goes on… and on… and on… for two and a half minutes. Did I dream this, after some bad salmon? No, it’s on YouTube:

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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