Anyone who paid any attention during the last presidential
campaign will have noticed the ridiculous overuse of a relatively new and
annoying term: “the optics”. Yes, rather than saying: “It looks bad”, now, to
seem smarter (I guess), they are saying: “The optics are bad”. (The aurals are
bad here, I think. That is to say: it sounds bad to me.)
But regardless of how stupid this whole new terminology is,
it has most definitely entered popular culture, so why not use it for advertising?
(Hey, it’s already annoying, so it’s perfect!) And what better thing to use it
for than glasses? (Or perhaps Lasik.)
So here’s how an ad like this might play out: A campaign guy
is advising a political candidate, and they say: “The optics are bad here.” And
the candidate, frustrated, says: “You know what? Maybe your optics are bad! Have you thought about getting
glasses?” So then everyone else in the room looks at the political advisor, and
he says: “You’re all staring at me, aren’t you?” So then he goes to get glasses
at (whatever glasses place), and when he comes back to the political office,
the candidate asks: “So, how are the optics now?” And the political advisor
says: “Much better, thanks. And you know, I think the optics for your strategy
are good too, actually. Maybe it really was my optics that were bad after all.”
