Ty Pennington Is Ruining The World

Alright, I am usually just a mellow dude and couldn’t care less about the day-to-day media-hype engine that drives consumer consumption throughout the world. Although I am fascinated by it…

But now I have to go off. In fact, it has been awhile since I have been motivated to publish because, quite frankly, design is boring. But tonight, while I mindlessly watched Ryan Secrest kick Anwar to the curb on American Idol, one of the 95 commercials aired during the half-hour show made me just cringe with embarrassment chills. The world of design just took another leap backwards toward oblivion.

Now, Sears has plastered that dufus jackass Ty Pennington into the faggy role of “Designer.” The cheese-ball commercial features Ty working diligently in his “studio” trying to perfect, of all things, a fork. After 20 tries, he boasts, he finally got it right! Good job Ty you dingus. The spot also shows this modern master pensively contemplating fabric swatches for bed sheets, as well as challenging products like clear glass candle votives. The excitement really gets crazy as Ty muses that “each of my collections can help you design a room.” Deep.

Sears is also to blame for the downright goofy logo (see photo) and the absolute dorky look on Ty’s pretty-boy face.

Now why, you ask, should any of this bother me. Or, why does it surprise me that Sears would jump on this whole stupid Extreme Makeover shit? Do I really believe they have built a quality house in frickin’ 3 days? Or the sappy cry-baby families and phony “design” pros that pretend to actually participate in this ruse and that the producers of the show prod into overacting during the monumental “reveal?” This is all a big bunch of marketing genius on both Ty and Sears’ part. One I should be in awe of right?

Here is my problem with all this. Ty is a big fraud. He doesn’t know shit about anything he is trying to represent. I’ve read his puffy bio and of course the guy went to art school. But before doing anything creative, he “moved to Hollywood to pursue his acting career.” That is just lame.

But now, he keeps passing himself off as someone who knows the design business. And that pisses everyone off. His fans are suburban housewives between the ages of 36 and 41 who read Family Circle and Sunset magazine and still watch reruns of that mega-depressive Trading Spaces. They all miss Ty’s funny antics and goofy ad-libs. He, of course had to leave that vehicle because he wasn’t getting enough air time and his handlers needed to prop him up into his own prime time showcase in order to cash in on his 14 minutes of fame.

The downside of all of this is that it makes real designer’s jobs so much more worthless. People actually think buying this ready-made pseudo Ikea crap that is made in Jakarta and China will, as Ty suggests, “help you design a room”.

Do you think I am blowing all this out of proportion. Then I offer this: If you have the stomach for it, go to Ty’ s official website. If this site doesn’t convince you that he is the biggest dingleberry in the design world AND you don’t want to vomit trying to click through this prick’s zany photos of himself on every stinking page of this ego-driven drivel, then you need to have your nose punched good because you are not in touch with how manipulated and diluted the design world has become. It is just kissing the ass of the cheap knock-off and you are guilty of cultural genocide.