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  Sara Rosinsky • Shiny Red Copy

sara's Shiny red blog

Sea-Monkeys traumatized me.

12/19/2017

6 Comments

 
Picture
As it turns out, advertisers can be deceptive.

Let's look at Exhibit A, above. In the '70s, this ad appeared in comic books and depicted what I thought I was going to receive when I ordered... a family? a colony? a kingdom? of Sea-Monkeys. I genuinely thought I was going add water and create sentient bipeds. It gave me a moral dilemma, really. Would they be my prisoners? My slaves? Surely "pets" wasn't the right term. How could I withstand the responsibility of caring for them?

Well, I needn't have worried. Because this is what Sea-Monkeys actually look like:
Picture
Seriously, advertisers? You make credulous little kids believe they're going to raise mermaids and mermen, and you give them what are essentially microscopic water impurities?

Look at the ad. Beneath the garbage about how you can train these little aqua-bugs, down at the very bottom, you can see the disclaimer "Caricatures shown are not intended to depict Artemia salina" (the miniscule brine shrimp you'll actually receive).

What are they meant to depict, I wonder? 
6 Comments
CB
3/25/2020 12:21:48 pm

OMG, I remember those ads.

I always knew that they couldn't be sending "people" but I had no idea that it was shrimp! How exactly are the shrimp able to be trained to obey commands?

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
3/25/2020 12:32:39 pm

It's possible that it wasn't the most honest advertising.

Reply
Chaul Jhin Kim
10/30/2021 05:49:26 am

Cute sea monkeys! They look like tiny little feather dusters haha!

The next time I wake up, please change my physical form to that of FINN MCMILLAN formerly of SOUTH NEW BRIGHTON at 8 YEARS OLD and keep it that way FOREVER.

I am so sick of this chubby Asian man body!

Thank you!

- CHAUL JHIN KIM (a.k.a. A DESPERATE SOUL)

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
10/30/2021 05:53:41 am

Sorry—am I supposed to understand what you're talking about? 🤔

Reply
Kavita
2/3/2022 01:28:46 am

OMG! Was that what is was? As a kid in India, I would see these ads in Archie comic books and spend hours gazing at it wondering how it would be. This was long before internet and Amazon and all we could do was only fantasize about these creatures. Now that I know what it was, I can spend the rest of my life in peace with no more FOMO.

Reply
Sara Rosinsky link
2/3/2022 11:25:08 am

Yes! Forget the FOMO! :)

Reply

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