Parents on Facebook?
It’s a fear for some teenagers, but for others its a challenge that can leave you wishing social networking sites had never been created. Sometimes I think I got my first gray hairs when my parents started asking me how to use the computer and to “dial up” the Internet.
In Toyota’s 2011 Veneza commercial, a young teenage girl complains about her parents inability to socialize on facebook. She explains that she helped create Facebook accounts for for her parents but unfortunately they hardly ever use it. As she sits in front of her nice sleek Mac laptop, surfing around on Facebook, b-roll of her parents driving happily in a brand new Veneza is provided for the viewers. The teen continues to talk about her parents lack of social networking skills and how depressing it must be for them. She finally says the main driving point of the commercial: “I have 687 friends. This is life.”
This statement is the compared to parents’ low number of 19 Facebook friends, a number she believes creates their lack of social mobility in the world. We then see her parents are actually driving to a secluded area in the woods to go mountain biking with several of their close friends. Perhaps even some of those 19 Facebook friends. Toyota is using this scenario to demonstrate the disconnect between adults and teens in terms of social networking. Indeed it is meant to be a funny commercial, but it draws on the interests of parents who are confused as to what their children are even using Facebook for each day. However this message can also be interpreted by young adults as saying, “If my parents buy a Venezza, then they will have a social life.” This is a more obvious message, but I believe the message is still directed at parents and their frustration with Facebook.
When my mother asked me to create her a Facebook account last year, I was a bit apprehensive at first because I knew I would have to teach her everything about using it. I had experience with teaching both my mother and father how to use a computer, the Internet and email which is still a work in progress. My mother has probably 30 friends, but she hardly ever uses Facebook. ‘Adding’ friends and ‘poking’ people seems to be like a foreign language to her. This is not uncommon for most adults which does leave some truth with Toyota’s interpretation of this disconnect in its commercial. However, the sales pitch is what is a little unbelievable for some people and even adds to the humor of the commercial. Sure adults may have less friends on Facebook, but I doubt everyone of them goes out mountain biking with a brand new car. This representation of reality is twisted by Toyota’s humorous pitch for people to buy a new Veneza.
Note to self: Buy a new Veneza and you will be or will have cool parents. Facebook will be a thing of the past. Right?
Great choice of ad– this is a complex text that can be “read” in a lot of different ways. You make a number of strong points here– especially in identifying the humor in the “disconnect” between teens and parents. I wonder about the lifestyles and values embedded in the ad. It seems to suggest that driving is a more active form of living than using the computer. What are your thoughts about the accuracy and inaccuracy of this claim? You use your own family experience to make sense of this ad– but it would be more powerful to use those five critical questions, because it would encourage you to look really closely at the structure of the ad. The ad relies on juxtaposition between the teen girl (and her “reality”) to the parents (we presume) and their “reality” — which involves driving and bike-riding with friends. Your final point that explores the nature of the representation here – active living and driving as linked to the brand of car– shows that you’re onto something important when you note that anxiety about the rise of social media is clearly a major cultural theme today.