The problem with PLDT myDSL's Anna Banana Commercial - Updated

Let me guess the target market for this ad.



It's for low to middle income families who can afford a phoneline and internet connection in their homes (and who idealize living in a detached 3-bedroom house in an exclusive village) but cannot afford a Yaya or maid of their own

- probably because the salary meant for Yaya went to the phone company instead. If Yaya were there, Mommy could have elicited her help and included in the househelp's job description:

"create YouTube account, click to play Anna Banana video every 5 minutes."

Or at least: "do the groceries and turn the faucet off while I click on Anna Banana video every 5 minutes."

Or "call relatives and ask them to click on Anna Banana video every 5 minutes."

If the family in this ad is living in a Western country or have Western sensibilities, it is believable if they're not asking relatives for help in watching the vid. But clearly, they are in the PH, despite them living in a very 1st-world looking suburb, because - LOOK! - they're using PLDT.

Could you imagine anyone in the PH living in a house that big with no househelp? Could you? I'll give you three seconds.

Now, do you see that it is definitely unreal?

Of course ads aren't supposed to be "real," they only have to be believable or at least culturally correct / relatable.

If you could relate to this ad, If you find nothing off or odd or OA about this ad, then it is definitely for you. Surprise! you're PLDT myDSL's target market.


Second Surprise! The ad is for parents who are not grounded in their own reality. If ever the parents insist they're "grounded," they are only so in a way that fits with what they want/imagine that reality to be - they refuse to see what, who or where they are NOW.

Do you know those kind of parents?

You know -- - those parents who buy all the raffle tickets in the barangay kiddie beauty pageant contest their daughter is in so that their daughter will emerge as a winner (because they can't stand it if their daughter loses)

or the parents who do their kid's project because they couldnt stand seeing their child submit to the school a bad-looking one / or they couldnt stand seeing their child huff and puff and be challenged enough to actually make one,

Do you know those kind of parents? Or is it you?

Another surprise! We've all been there because it's easy. Us as a caregiver, helping - more than its necessary to do so - oddly calms us. Giving - more than we should - gives us a sense of (false) pride. "I helped, Im a good person, bow."

As the receiver of too much care from a giver, us as children - at one point in our lives - were then given permission to be complacent and to look up at ourselves not with truth but with warm-flattering-studio lights - the kind that conceals what we cannot yet admit/face/want to see.

Do you know a child like that? Or was it - is it still - you?


I found it disturbing how the mother in the ad is obsessed with getting her son's video to reach 100 views - and she's doing it all on her own - unnatural in our cultural context.

Because you SEE, it isn't about her son, really.

It's about her.

The 100 views is more for the mother than it is for her son. She thinks that by doing everything, she is therefore doing good - and by whose standards?

She is obsessed with the idea that her son might think of himself as pathetic - and that she is the mother of a pathetic son no one wants to watch - so she might as well control his perception which trumps everything else reality is telling her:

that her son's vid - though cute - really doesn't deserve 100 views,

that she is not really helping her son by helping him,

that giving everything is not loving (giving is giving, loving is simply just loving);

that she cannot see her son the way he is and so prefer to look at him the way she wants to see him - the fact that she is idealizing him means she is disrespecting him and so cannot see him as anything else other than what she wants him to be;

She thinks less of herself if people don't like her son or

she think more of herself if people like him - (SHE CAN'T SEEM TO SEE THE FACT THAT: "PEOPLE ONLY CARE IF YOU DO" is more real than her delusion);


Can she actually look at her son NOW and see him for what he is right at this MOMENT and not what she wants him to be?

Clearly, she wants to do anything and everything to make her child happy because she thinks that that's what would make her happy.

She carries all that weight to make her child's life easy, to make her child live the life the way he wants, the way she imagine his life should be - struggle-free and pain-free - even if sometimes it is best to allow him to learn how to do, think, be on his own.


See the fear in her eyes? Can she admit that she is afraid more for herself - and what people will think of how much control she has over her child's false self - than it is to raise an emotionally healthy person?




Her child is only taking his cue from her.

So it is no wonder that he's singing a self-made song about a girl who he says is his crush but compares her instead to a fried fruit is not really for the girl, it's for himself.

He really doesn't care about the girl, he only cares for what everybody thinks (how cool) he is in that vid by making it supposedly for the girl.

He only cares that people care. After all, he has the 100 views to prove it.

As long as he doesn't find out the numbers were manipulated by his own mother in the same way she manipulates his pseudo-self-esteem, trust in the fact that he'll grow up a brat, a Mama's Boy, a narcissist or a jerk.


--- I suddenly remember one Christmas years ago at the World Trade Center Xmas Bazaar where people were packed like sardines in the venue while looking at and buying Christmas-related wares/products/gifts. The place was so packed people were shoving each other for space. I saw a young boy - probably 11 or 12 loose his footing for some reason - as it was natural to do at an overcrowded venue - but suddenly blames his "shameful" "ego-"trip" (pun intended) on his Yaya.

"Oy! Wala akong ginagawa sayo ah!" the yaya blurted out as if she has done so - and is so used to do - for the nth time.

"Ikaw eh!" the brat insisted.

To which his mother handled the situation by embracing the boy, patting his back and healing his bruised identity - as one incapable of falling over - by condoning his un-called for blame and pacifying his temper. And suddenly, in my mind's eye, I see him years after playing the same game but this time addressing the blame to his mom.




Oh, and this post really is not about the ad, it is about YOU.

The ad was made for you anyway and the fact that you like it or find nothing wrong with it means the makers of the ad know YOU.

That's a signal for you to ask: "Do I know me?"



Actual Youtube comments about the ad:


Nobody but his mom would watch his video. His mom had to feed his ego to boost his self-esteem. I feel for the mom.
EJBronteable 2 days ago 9


from what country did this take place? Philippines?
TheMegaCommentkid 15 hours ago


yan ang tunay na magulang !!
gagawin ang lahat mapasaya lang
ang anak !! hindi naman lahat pero
na touch ako sa effort ng mama
nya para maka 100views !! hahaha
VerseSeventeen17 4 days ago 14


my kudos to whoever conceptualized wrote and directed this commercial....GENIUS!!
katef4 8 hours ago



"`The problem with kids today...' Stop right there, I'll finish: is parents today."
- The Last Psychiatrist