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Monday, April 4, 2011
Who *doesn’t* want a Petite Lap Giraffe?
By now, you’ve probably seen the bizarre commercials for DirecTV featuring a very wealthy man with a very thick Russian accent extolling the virtues of the television service while a very small giraffe steals the scene.
In one ad (called “Opulence, I has it”), the man sits down on a golden couch and offers the tiny giraffe a kiss, then giggles like a child.
In another (called “I Am Epic Win”), the giraffe is off to the side running on a miniature treadmill while watching footage of giraffes running in the wild on a large flat screen TV. At the end, it ends up with a towel thrown over its neck as it placidly walks offscreen.
Really, it’s a genius move. Who hates giraffes? No one. Who, upon seeing one of those commercials, will rush to their nearest Internet-ready device to look up “mini giraffe?” Everyone. Ok, not everyone, but enough to make it worth DirecTV’s while.
They even took it one step further: http://www.petitelapgiraffe.com, a website for a completely fictional but very convincing “farm” in Russia that specializes in, you guessed it, petite lap giraffes.
The site’s homepage features a “live” giraffe-cam where you can watch one of the farm’s bulls, Vladimir, walking around in the straw or taking a nap. By all logic, these are probably pre-recorded and pre-animated videos (I know I’ve seen the same clip at least twice), but it’s not hard to achieve suspension of disbelief - especially when you really, really want your own petite lap giraffe.
In fact, none of the blocks of broken English on the site actually tells you that these creatures are, sadly, not real. The “About” page describes the petite lap giraffes, or PLG’s, in detail, with all the information a potential buyer might need when their kids are clinging to their legs, begging for their own giraffe.
Housebroken? Sokoblovsky Farms assure you a PLG can be litterbox-trained. Hypoallergenic? You bet. Diet? “Distilled water and bonsai tree leaves.” They seem remarkably easy to care for, needing only “a bubble bath once a week with purified water” and “hugs and kisses every day. Otherwise they make tears.” And if you really want to make your PLG happy, let him listen to Rimsky-Korsokov on repeat. I wonder if they make tiny giraffe-sized earbuds for your iPod so he can listen in the bath?
You can even get in line on a waiting list (I’m currently No. 611,119) for your own PLG calf. But considering that the gestation period is 420 days and Sobolovsky Farms lays claim to one bull and two cows, I wouldn’t expect it by Christmas.
Oh, and the giraffe in the commercials has a name: Ivanka. What would you name your petite lap giraffe?
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