The upgrade to digital content has a lighter side. This commercial is a couple of years old, but it just popped up in my Facebook feed, I hadn’t seen it before, and it quite tickled me. The husband has made the move to digital, and now with all the enthusiasm of the newly converted, he repeatedly scolds his wife, Emma, for continuing to use that old-fashioned, environmentally wasteful atavism, paper, instead of getting with the new digital hotness. But she has the ultimate comeback in the end…

An unmentioned irony is that, as I noted a few years ago, points of view like the husband’s are actually endangering the supply of toilet paper, which is largely made by recycling other used paper. The declining use of paper as digital became more popular was why paper company Domtar launched a “Put It On Paper” ad campaign, to try to make people like Emma feel good about continuing to use paper products. It seems appropriate that a toilet paper company should join in poking fun at digital evangelists.

(And before anyone brings up bidets—yes, I’m aware of them, but if you don’t think toilet paper is “irreplaceable,” then just try getting everyone in the world who uses toilet paper to switch to them instead.)

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