The entire commercial makes the Queen of the Night appear ridiculous, pompous, and boring.

Shame on Amazon UK and their new Alexa commercial that asks Alexa to stop playing Mozart and start playing “something more fun.” The entire commercial makes Mozart’s Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute appear ridiculous, pompous, and boring. It is none of those things and I am tired of popular culture and commerce constantly trying to belittle high culture in order to make a buck.

This commercial glorifies a basic fool in a deck chair as having better musical taste than Mozart. There is no music more fun than Mozart’s. There is music that is simpler and stupid but simpler and stupid aren’t fun. Simple and stupid are simple and stupid.

This is yet another incident of popular culture and commerce lionizing the mundane and the average. The average and the mundane are realities but they need to be kept in their place. Life is full of the average and the mundane. Well and good. Let’s not pretend they are exceptional and outstanding.

When are we going to stop letting commerce tell us that an average and mundane individual is actually a fully integrated individual who is in charge of his aesthetic tastes after a thorough exploration of culture?

I get it. Amazon is portraying the every-man as a monarch in charge of his domestic castle. The average man can tell his lackey (Alexa) to “play something more fun” and Alexa does his bidding. Why does Mozart have to be dragged through the mud in this case?

Here’s an idea for an Alexa commercial. A young person is studying and tells Alexa to “play something less vapid and obvious” and Alexa chooses Mozart. It’s the same idea. You, the individual are in charge, so long as you pay Amazon.

Maybe Amazon understands us better than I realize. Maybe Amazon realizes that despite copious amounts of education and mountains of information, most people are still peasants at heart. Maybe Amazon knows that most people are average, mundane, simple, and stupid, aka peasants. Maybe Amazon realizes it can make money by telling the peasants they are kings.

Is Amazon right? Are we mostly average, mundane, simple, and stupid? Are we still peasants? I’d like to think not but I’ve been wrong before and Amazon appears to be right a lot of the time when it comes to how the market will respond.

The other side of this story is high culture apologists who routinely give popular culture merit. You will routinely hear the leader of a classical music organization say something along the lines of, “All music has merit and sometimes people just want to let their hair down and have fun.”

High culture can’t even get consistent support from itself.

High culture is fun. Exploring the wisdom and insights of the greatest minds of the ages is a blast. I’m not being facetious here. It’s is fun to gain wisdom from high culture.

It’s time for the peasants to revolt and demand something better from their corporate overlords.