“This toaster will change your life”. Okay, you can try but you’re a toaster. I don’t have high hopes.
What kind of life are you living where a toaster can have any significance?
An Instagram ad for a toaster has made the fairly outrageous claim of being able to change your life forever. Bearing in mind how few life-changing events actually take place, it appears to be a bold albeit unlikely claim.
Its not a unique statement however. We, as a public, have been lied to before on numerous occasions. If every single ordinary kitchen appliance could impact us the way they say they could, we’d all be different people every day of our lives.
Picture the following scenario.
You see someone you think is your brother but for some reason you only half-recognise, you go up to them and ask, “was it the toaster?” The two of you embrace as tears stream down both your faces, ruing how much this damned toaster altered who you used to be.
Though, in fairness, It is not clear to what extent you will be changed. There is a possibility that this mad claim is fairly tame.
For instance, if someone were to claim watching the movie Die Hard would change your life, what they mean is before you do that you wouldn’t have seen it whereas afterwards you would have. That is the only change.
Before buying this toaster, you are a person who happens to not have this one particular appliance. After buying this toaster, your life has been changed because now you are the exact same person but you happen to have this particular toaster.
Its a real tightrope act where Big Toaster always comes out on top. If there is a wholesale improvement to your general well-being, the ad was truthful, if the only change is actually possessing a new toaster, they were still technically truthful.
The Ipe Collection 