America is a nation of mostly poor, unattractive people who take their cues on life from the fictional actions of rich, attractive characters on television. The NBC network, your father figure, has decided to educate our slackjawed populace. With television!

It used to be that NBC used its teevee shows' potent mind control powers only to sell us Subway sandwiches, and feebly remind us to recycle. But knowing that you, the insecure American viewer, will take the advice of fictional 30 Rock characters when it comes to selecting a carbonated beverage, NBC figured, hey, why not instruct our viewers on how to accomplish the most basic tasks that will allow them to live a moderately healthy life, without drowning to death in their couch under a tidal wave of Cheez-Its? A healthy consumer is a consumer that can purchase advertised products, as they say in our nation's scientific broadcasting academies. Therefore, the WSJ reports today, NBC has instituted "behavior placement" along with product placement in its shows—to teach you, the American Idiot, how to Be Good.

First there was Green Week. In June, NBC "will emphasize healthy eating and exercise," subtly, via the actions of characters there on the screen of your unmoving teevee.

Behavior placement gives marketers extra incentive to advertise at a time when digital video recorders equip viewers with an unprecedented ability to skip commercials, says Jason Kanefsky, a media buyer at Havas's MPG. "You're not forcing your way into a program in any shape or form," he says. "You're just nodding your head at a program."

You'r just nodding your head to the program. What the program says is what you will do. Fortunately, our NBC overlords are using this power for benevolent purposes. One can only imagine what could happen if it were, say, unleashed only in service of convincing us to purchase certain brands of automobiles and beauty products and 100-Calorie Snak Paxxx.

Looks like the Hypodermic Needle Theory of communications was right after all. Fuck you, Cognitive Revolution.
[Pic: Anatoliy Samara/ Shutterstock]