Ugh to This LOFT Ad About Frantically Binge-Exercising in Saran Wrap

Yeah, yeah, we all had a lot of cookies this past month and now maybe your clothes don’t fit right. Or maybe they do. Or maybe you don’t give a fuck? Whatever the case, January is always a big month for “Feel bad about yourself you ugly cow”-style advertising. Clothing retailer LOFT just added another one on the pile, because we weren’t already feeling existentially weary.

The video, posted to their Facebook page earlier this week, is called “Desperate Measures.” A thin, able-bodied white woman weighs herself, makes a sad/disgusted face, furiously wraps herself in plastic wrap and starts running around her apartment, doing frantic lunges and crunches. Her roommate strolls by; the exercising woman looks up from the floor, mid-crunch, and mutters, weakly, “There’s a — it’s a wedding.” Hahahaha, the compulsive exercising part of your eating disorder is so wacky!

This ad is trash, obviously, though LOFT seems undeterred by its angry Facebook commenters (“Terrible,” “ridiculous,” and “Are you serious?” have already featured prominently). But more than that, it’s just… odd. It’s one of those ads that takes an essentially very dark and distressing aspect of the female experience — although it’s not just women who struggle with disordered eating, obviously — and turns it into, I don’t know, something we’re supposed to find funny? Relatable? I stepped on a scale and was washed with self-loathing and immediately tried to make part of myself disappear, lol?

What the fuck kind of way is this to sell clothes? But also, who are the people who come up with campaigns like this, and are, themselves, genuinely amused by them?