Adverts on British TV used to be clever, funny and focused on getting to you to try a new product or swap from one brand to another. Used to be.
Here in the bewildering dystopian sh**show that is the first quarter of the 21st century that is no longer the case. There are still some gems, but they’re few and far between. The tone of ads today is very much lecturing, high minded and often quite vague, it’s possible to watch an ad and at the end be in the dark about what was being advertised.
This morning I saw an especially well-formed example of the lecturing, high minded vague advert. The CGI mini movie takes us swiftly through human development to an imagined future where “we have a chance to change everything”. Water, power, urban design, learning, finance, agriculture, etc. etc. etc. It’s all going to be lovely, apparently.
As I gazed in wonder at the glorious future being planned for us, I was eager to learn which product or service was being advertised. Would it be insurance, a new electric car, holidays in Wales, mineral water? My tiny peasant brain simply couldn’t work it out.
At the end a logo that looked like it was cut out of a patchwork quilt came up, with the word “NEOM” and the by-line “Made to Change”. So, I was none the wiser. Being an inquisitive soul, I looked it up on Johnnie Interweb and I was quite surprised.
It turns out that Neom is a city, well, it will be a city, a city of the future. It’s a project in northwest Saudi Arabia (with a little bit of Egypt), part of their attempt to reduce their reliance on the oil business. It is going to cover 10,200 sq mi (26,500 sq km), for comparison, the Metropolitan area of New York, the world’s largest city by area, covers 4,700 sq mi (12,000 sq km). Being a brand-new planned city of the future, it will have all the bells and whistles utopias should have.
Of course, solar and wind will provide all the power. Apparently plans include robots to perform functions such as security, logistics, home delivery, and caregiving. Well, that’s comforting, isn’t it? A sarcastic and irreverent person might wonder if there would be robots to execute the gay men, witches, and women guilty of adultery, this being Saudi Arabia. Well, shame on that sarcastic person, Neom will exist in its own legislative area independently from the “existing governmental framework”. Phew.
It might also be suggested by awkward people, who aren’t on board with the project, that carving a brand-new metropolis out of largely untouched land is hardly the “greenest” thing to do.
Please ignore that fact that the area chosen by clever, important people for Neom was inhabited by a tribe of Bedouin called the Howeitat. Their protests against the evictions have led to arrests and at least one death (Saudi security forces claim the man fired on them). Just move along, nothing to see here…
The advert would seem to be born from the unlovely coupling of the Saudis and the PR firm Ruder Finn, hired to calm people’s concerns about silly old human rights and the general nastiness and sleaziness of the House of Saud.
Here’s the full advert, enjoy, it’s the future, apparently.
3 replies on “Welcome to the future”
So I went to the site, and it does say 26,500 km^2, which is larger than New Jersey. Not going to look at the rest of the site, but you are correct, ads like that drive me crazy. What is the product, no one knows.
The concept of a city simply being decreed into existence I find odd. I know that’s pretty much the case with DC, but it was the new capitol of a new nation. Even now, in 2021 it can hardly be accused of being a well functioning model city. The history of building cities in the middle of nowhere because clever folk worked out that’s where they should be is not good. This Saudi project looks like Neypyidaw for Nerds.
One could argue that the only successful “let’s build it here” city is Vegas.
Every other city developed over time as they had something to offer and people kept going there. Think Pittsburgh and its 3 rivers.
I have visions of Asimov’s “Caves of Steel” bouncing in my head.