25 Million People Can’t Be Wrong

My irritation rises when I hear opinions or perceptions presented as “facts,” because they are not facts. This is not an uncommon occurrence, whether it’s while watching TV, in advertisements or in everyday conversations, faux-facts seem to worm themselves in there. When I hear opinions stated as facts, it gets my back up and I immediately think, “No, I disagree.”

Recently I saw a commercial for a TV show that basically said that lots of people watched this show and that “25 million people can’t be wrong.” And I instantly thought, “Yeah, they can be wrong.” [Pause.] “And yes, they are wrong. (At least in my opinion.)” I tried watching this TV show during its first season and was disappointed by the stupidity of the characters that kept making dumb decisions. But for whatever reason, I thought that maybe during its second season things would improve…they didn’t. The characters were still stupid. And I was stupid for watching it. So I stopped.

But I digress, a simple fix for this commercial would have been, “25 millions of people watched this show,” because that would have been a fact (assuming that it was true). I don’t really care if people watch this TV show, but adding that “can’t be wrong part” in the commercial just irritated me. It was as though the commercial was trying to peer-pressure me into watching it. “Come on, everybody watches it. Don’t you want to watch it too? Be like us. Be one of the cool kids.” [Pause.] So the take away is: just say no to peer-pressure. [Cue inspirational PSA graphic.]