My Lancet piece about therapy and ‘wanting to be normal’ is finally out. It’s had some lovely comments already and I’m really glad it’s rung some bells for people.
While thinking about cultural norms for the piece, I was reminded of an especially horrible example of advertising that I saw in a cinema in the early 90s. It was for a brand of trainer, and it began with a nerdy (here we go again) older guy sitting at home making a huge cathedral or something out of matchsticks. He’d just put the final matchstick in place when a huge trainered foot comes down out of the sky and squashes it flat, with a suitably sneering punchline. Anyone remember this? Ugh. It’s interesting that this version of ‘cool’, like the other ad I describe in the piece, has more than a hint of enforced conformity about it.
