The thing about TV commercials is that because there’s so much money (and CEO ego) riding on thirty seconds of video, the filming process is agonizing. Every shot requires eleventy billion takes because God forbid it isn’t perfect, and also needs twelvety different variations so the client has Options. (Literally, if it’s a big-deal ad for a big-deal client, you can easily go over 20 takes of a 1-second shot.)

I think about this every time I see a commercial with people laughing. The actors who are trying to make it look light and spontaneous have been doing this exact laugh, every few minutes, for three days.

So if the people in commercials look a little hollow in the eyes, it’s not because they’re bad actors, or because capitalism exerts some sort of nebulous anti-personality force. It’s because capitalism exerts a very specific anti-personality force that has evolved the general concept of “telling people your product exists” into a timeloop pocket dimension for unusually attractive 23-year-olds who live with four roommates.

Also, the casting directors are really specific about the “type” they want so the hiring process for this involves sitting in a waiting room with forty people who look exactly like you and hoping you’re the one who’s best at it.