On the Advertisements that Have Recently Found Us
You Don't Say — Sharp Eyes, Mild Expression
Hallelujah. We have been located.
For years the algorithm looked straight through us — past us, around us, occasionally at the woman ten years younger standing directly behind us — and showed us nothing. We did not exist as a consumer. We were a gap in the data, a demographic that had stepped behind a curtain and pulled it shut.
Then somebody in a meeting said “Total Addressable Market” and “spending power,” and the curtain flew back.
You’ve seen the ads. A woman roughly our age stands in a kitchen with no visible function — no school bags, no unanswered post, no single useful crumb — laughing alone at a salad. Not a smile. A full, head-thrown-back laugh, directed at lettuce. A voice that has been to a great deal of therapy says the word permission. You have permission now. To rest. To bloom. To “put yourself first,” a phrase that always arrives attached to something costing $58.
We did not ask for permission. We have not, broadly speaking, asked for permission since 2003.
The serum is the purest specimen. They’ve wised up — the twenty-six-year-old is gone. Now they send a woman who looks exactly our age, not a line on her face, to explain how the lines have disappeared. The product did that. Not genetics, not lighting, not a filter sophisticated enough to smooth a walnut. The serum. We are to find this relatable, and then spend the money. The audacity is, genuinely, breathtaking. We almost respect it.
And then there’s the candle range. There is a candle for every internal weather system a woman might experience — one called Unbothered, one called Permission, one that is simply the smell of a woman who has stopped apologizing, retailing at $42 and burning for nineteen hours, which is roughly the apology’s actual half-life. Someone named these. Someone approved the copy. Everyone kept a straight face. We find this heroic.
Here is what we will say in the brands’ defense, because we are fair: they noticed us. After years of pretending that we evaporated at the school gate, someone looked up from the spreadsheet and said “untapped”, and now there are catalogs. Small mercies. We will take the catalogs. We will also light the candles. We will not, however, be taking instructions from either.