This Ad Makes Smoking Look Cool

I record a couple of late night poker shows and watch them early when no one else is up. It's my "me time." One stands out as "badvertising," even as I'm fast-forwarding, so I've stopped to watch it a couple of times.

The Smoke Assist Electronic Smoking Device commercial runs on almost every break. It's not sold as a smoking cessation product, but something to help you legally look like you're smoking. It's branded outrightly as an oral fixation product. It even comes in a box that looks like a pack of cigarettes, the modern day gadget equivalent of the candy cigarettes of the 1960s.

The actors all say they're so amazed that it's just like smoking. But they all look very unnatural with the little vapor chimneys. They don't hold them right. They don't exhale right. The redhead woman looks like Gene Simmons breathing fire during the second KISS farewell tour.

One guy holds it like a remote control rather than a true cancer stick. "It's really smooth, too," he says. Of course it is! It's roughly equivalent to stepping outside on a cold day, holding your breath and breathing out real hard.

But there's something else wrong. They're all laughing and having a good time. There's something else amiss with the spot. They all just look... what's the word?

Happy.

Smokers don't look happy smoking, so there's no sense of realism in the spot. I have an opinion as to why. It's because these actors are getting paid to act like they're smoking. No self-respecting smoker, even one who needs the money, will take the gig. They are nothing if not loyal, to their vice. They can't (or won't) act like this simulates really smoking, because it really doesn't. I've never been a smoker and I know it's nothing like smoking.

The commercial assertains that you can legally puff away anywhere on the little battery powered steam maker. Bars, restaurants, even at work, the commercial says.

Real smokers, in a show or rebellious solidarity, brave the elements in order to get their nicotine fix. They are as true to their habit as a mail carrier is to carrying out appointed rounds; neither snow, nor rain, nor recently passed city ordinance...

As they're out there in defiance of their two common enemies, pink lung tissue and clean air in public establishments, they'll have the time to look through the windows at a cloud of clean, water vapor floating the air. The smokers have a common thought. "That guy is the biggest douche I've ever seen. I hope he forgets to exhale that water vapor, it sits in his lungs and he develops pneumonia."

Of course, the militant non-smokers will see him looking like he's smoking and walk over and say in a very non-judgmental way: "Why do you do that to yourself? It's so dirty and unhealthy. Do you know what you're doing to your body? Smoking cuts nine years off your life. Second-hand smoke is even more dangerous and you shouldn't expose others to your habit. How do you stand the smell on your clothes when you get home? It's just disgusting and it's against the law to smoke in a public place. Could you please step outside with the rest of the dirty people?"

"Ma'am, this is an electronic smoking device. It's battery operated. It looks and tastes like smoke, but I'm exhaling clean water vapor. So it's not against the law," our hero explains.

"Oh," she says, "You're not a real smoker. You're just a douche!"

Deep down, he knows she's right. But he takes another drag off the modified squirt gun in rightous indignation. As the water vapor cloud fades into nothingness, along with the last shreds of his dignity, it's time for reflection. I mean, when a militant smoke nazi calls you out, you've really got to take stock of your vices.

Even your fake vices.