Google Nexus 7 Glossophobia (Fear of Public Speaking) Commercial

Is it just me, or are the examples in the recent television commercial for Google’s Nexus 7 tablet just incredible lame?

Google’s Nexus 7 – glossophobia (fear of public speaking) – TV commercial

Let’s take a closer look and review the commercial for Google’s Nexus 7 tablet.

The scenario in this commercial is a high school student who has to give a speech to his class.  Public speaking can be a nerve-wrecking experience for anybody, no matter your age or the size of your audience.  It’s a fear that many people would rank as worse than the fear of death.

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

The Nexus 7 commercial begins with a boy using the voice recognition feature on the tablet.  He’s asking about the term “glossophobia,” which means a speech anxiety or commonly known as the fear of public speaking.

So how did the boy know about the word “glossophobia” without knowing its meaning?  Did the teacher use that word in class?  Did a smart ass student label him with that term?

We do know that the boy used the speech recognition software to look up its definition, implying that he didn’t know how to spell the word.  Score one for the easy path.  Just make sure that you pronounce words correctly and don’t speak with a heavy accent.

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

And how does the boy begin preparing for his upcoming speech?  He takes his tablet to his treehouse (What convenience!  Imagine the horror if he had to sit and use a library, desktop computer or a laptop of all things!) and looks up the song “The Underdog” by Spoon.

Why he chooses “The Underdog” of all songs is anybody’s guess.  Apparently this is supposed to be a song to help motivate him, but the kid clearly has a bad taste in music.  We see him add this song to a playlist for future listening sessions.

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

The commercial continues and now the boy is looking for examples of speeches.  He watches a clip from The King’s Speech, a historical drama film from 2010.  Touching the screen at certain moments brings up information about the actor.  How that’s relevant to the subject in this advertisement is anybody’s guess.

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

Now that he has his “motivational” music and an example of a speech from a British film, the boy moves on and starts looking up information about public speaking.  This searching takes the boy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt‘s inauguration speech from 1933.  If people today remember anything from this speech, it’s that President Roosevelt uttered the famous words, “. . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . .”  It’s not like people still remember the content from FDR’s inaugural speech from 1933.

I’m going to assume that the marketers chose this speech as that sentence was talking about no longer fearing fear.  Fear of public speaking and overcoming that fear is the subject of the commercial.  Of course, there’s also the connection between the sinister side of Google and FDR’s politics . . .

If you want to talk about not only one of the greatest speeches but one of the greatest presentations ever given, then I highly recommend General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.‘s speech after the U.S. victory in Operation Desert Storm.

Now that is how you perform a presentation!

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

Getting back on topic, the boy who badly needs a haircut begins using his trusty Google Nexus 7 tablet and researches how to perform a speech.  He learns how to practice giving the speech to build his confidence.  And to think, when I had to take my mandatory Public Speaking class in college, all I had was a textbook, a teacher whose head was buried up her you-know-what, and our college’s library.  Thank God that all of the children have tablets these days!  I don’t know how they would make it without all of that technology.

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

We then see the boy’s mother take his tablet and uses one of its features to set a reminder note for the boy.  The next day at school the boy sees his mother’s note of confidence, though it’s not exactly the correct thing to say at a time like this.

The mother leaves a stereotypical note saying, “If you change one mind, you’ve succeeded.”  It’s all bullsh*t and sets somebody up for failure, making them anticipate that most people will disagree with their argument.  If you have one hundred people in your audience and only one person agrees with your speech, then A) You have the wrong audience, or B) You gave the wrong speech.  That whole, “If you change one mind, you’ve succeeded,” is what losers resort to in the end.  It’s the same thing as, “Well, at least I tried.”  Yes, you did try and that’s admirable, but you still failed in the end.

More importantly, this is simply the wrong motivational message for this scenario.

In this commercial, the boy is nervous about performing a public speech, NOT trying to give a persuasive argument.  In this case the subject in his speech is meaningless.  It’s all about gaining the confidence to step in front of a group of people (in this case it’s his classmates) and not faint or talk like a mumbling idiot.  If anything his speech is most likely something informative or historical.  Persuasive speeches, on the other hand, are more advanced and not for people at that low of a level when it comes to public speaking.

In this example the mother should have left a note like, “You can do it!  I have faith in you!”  Or something similar.  The message that we see in the commercial is simply wrong.  Try again.

And to think, before the age of tablets and smart phones, our moms simply left encouraging notes on paper or Sticky Notes.  The notes could even be hidden inside of text books or note books so that we would read the encouragement at just the right moment, too.

The boy steps in front of the class and gives his speech.  Apparently it’s a success.  He didn’t pass out or panic.  We’re meant to believe that he did so well that one of the girls is giving him special attention.

So what does our hero do?

Google Nexus 7 TV commercial

In one of the most beta of moves, the boy uses his freakin’ tablet to RESEARCH how to ask out a girl!

Really?!?

Do you really need the help of a tablet for a question like that?  Instead of asking about common sense material, the boy should have asked how to speak/write without stranding prepositions at the ending of sentences.  “How do I ask a girl out?”  Sadly, that’s how much of our society talks these days, and it’s only growing worse.

There are only two steps required when it comes to asking a girl for a date:

Step #1 – Grow a pair of balls.

Step #2 – Ask her to go some place where the two of you have a common interest.  Just don’t make it too distracting or she’ll be more focused on the distractions rather than getting to know you.

The fact that the marketers actually added this into the commercial for the Google Nexus 7 tablet is freaking ridiculous!  RIDICULOUS!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Is it just me, or are children (and many of their parents) this clueless that they need the constant presence of technology to assist them with everyday life?

Yes, technology does help make our lives easier to manage (especially when you’re always busy or have special needs), but in many cases the software is replacing the human brain and the ability to think.  This is especially true when you don’t know how to use software like Internet search engines correctly, or just put blind faith in whatever you read.  The more biased and one-dimensional your sources, then the more clueless that you become.  Technology like smart phones and tablets aides the lazy and clueless people (a percentage growing at a frighteningly fast pace) into becoming even more helpless and generally stupid.

“I only use so-and-so for my Internet searches.”

– Do you know that so-and-so censors their search results?  If that software finds certain key words that it’s been programmed to blacklist or ignore, more matter how relevant that site may be to your search terms, then those results will not appear.

“I only watch so-and-so for news stories.”

– Do you know that so-and-so is actually incredibly biased towards certain political agendas?  When you read the same news stories from other sources you receive a completely different side of the story.  Just because a story is being reported on TV or the radio, or it appears in a newspaper or magazine, does NOT mean that it’s 100% true.

Get the picture?

So here we have an advertisement for the Google Nexus 7 tablet, but while the examples attempt to show off the product’s features, we really see people who are unable to use other sources when it comes to solving problems.