Hyperbole out of control

Everyone exaggerates just a little now and then. Advertisers have to do it in order to sell products. But in elevating their claims to outshine the competition, ad writers have reached a tipping point.

In an unspoken agreement between advertisers and consumers, we all expect outrageous statements. We don’t believe most of them, and we’re not expected to. Many are done for comedic effect. A radio spokesman for a mortgage company shouts that choosing their low-cost financing is:

The biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind!

I always imagine one caveman saying to another, “Fire. Hot. Hurt.” There must be other examples of bigger no-brainers (“Woolly Mammoth! Run!”), although much of mankind’s history was not recorded so there’s no proof.

A frozen panini package gives directions for cooking the contents in the microwave, using the:

Revolutionary browning tray!

It’s the box, folks. You turn the box inside-out and place the sandwich on top of it. Revolutionary? Hardly comparable to that little unpleasantness with England in 1776. Or the French unrest in 1789. Or that 1917 dust-up in Russia.

So we take these claims with a grain of salt. Or do we? Perhaps we’re so conditioned to expect exaggeration that the line between truth and hyperbole has moved. The question is … in which direction?

A medical web site recently published an article that encouraged people with desk jobs to get up and move around periodically. It listed the dangers of working for hours while hunched over a computer, and identified some health problems that could result. Someone misinterpreted the article and published this bold statement:

Every minute you sit at your desk takes years off your life!

The claim was picked up and quoted, unquestioned, in dozens of other articles and blogs. The original article was well-intentioned, but stop and think about that misquoted sentence. If every minute you sat still in a chair took even one year off your life, most people would have died long before they were born.  That includes anyone who has ever:

Attended a concert
Driven 100 miles in a car
Seen a movie in a theater
Waited in a doctor’s office
Watched a football game on TV
Flown across the country in an airplane

Maybe it’s time to apply a correction factor to everything we read and hear. I once knew an honest-to-goodness drama queen who spoke almost entirely in exaggerations. Everything was more unbelievable, over the top, and simply amazing than whatever anyone else had ever seen.

If you seemed inclined to believe her, the family took you aside and explained, “Take everything she says and divide it by ten.”

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