Once you see this twisted phone ad, you may never be the same again
Commentary: An ad for the AGM X2 phone in China shows a dead man's brain being preserved on a phone. His widow is delighted. Until disaster strikes (again).
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives
"Stranger Things" has nothing on this.
Ads are like phones .
They come, they go and they affect the world not in the slightest.
Then there's this insanely twisted, artistic oeuvre on behalf of the AGM X2.
Chinese company AGM is renowned for creating rugged, durable phones. This ad, I feel sure, is one of the most durable ever made.
We're in a hospital. A woman waits for news of her husband, who's clearly been undergoing surgery.
A surgeon emerges to tell her that her husband is dead.
She collapses with pain and grief. The surgeon has more to say: "But I have good news for you."
Indeed, the good news is that the surgeon has digitized the consciousness of the husband's brain and inserted it into the fine, sturdy AGM X2 phone.
You didn't think that was going to happen, did you?
What follows is beautifully macabre and a wonderful indication of what your children's futures might look like.
The (almost) widowed woman stares into her phone everywhere she goes, chatting with her husband. As you would too, if you were in these circumstances and technology allowed it.
Her husband says he's doing remarkably well. Given that he lives inside the phone, he needs charging rather than food.
And then, as if this woman hasn't already suffered enough, she drops her phone -- and her husband's brain -- in the river. She's bathed in grief all over again.
This ad is cruel beyond measure. But then someone fishes the phone out -- did I mention these phones are said to be waterproof? -- and her husband is with her again.
They go for a celebratory walk together and, naturally, take selfies. How he takes his selfie has to be witnessed in order to have truly lived.
And then, as if the warped cruelty hasn't been enough, the woman is set upon by a gang of men whose leader seems to have had designs on her and is upset that she's married.
Yes, this ad really is a soap opera all presented in just over three minutes.
Yet again, the phone suffers punishment and ends up back in the river. (Well, you have to get those product points across, don't you?)
Is this enough drama for you?
A spokesman for AGM told me that, since it was released at the end of January, the ad has garnered more than 6 million online views on the mobile video platform MIAOPAI.
This is, though, one of the more demented creations I've ever had the privilege of witnessing. I fear I may never be able to forget it.
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