Why Best Buy gets my geek dollars.

How much of my hard earned money has gone to Best Buy in the past decade? How many geektastic things have I bought from them throughout the years? 

Best Buy absolutely know their bread and butter -- GEEKS! -- namely, males from the ages of 13-49 with disposable income. In many ways, Best Buy is our best friend, and when times are tight -- possibly our worst enemy. They tempt us with the latest and greatest in media, tech -- all the things we drool after. They even name their computer tech service the Geek Squad! They love us, they ARE us. They would not survive without us and vice versa.

Ok, enough with the Best Buy love. Truth be told, I do most of my shopping online at Amazon or Hastings nowadays. But every once in a while, I have a hankering to walk down the aisles of a brick-and-mortar and lookfeeltouchBUYNOW.

The latest Memorial Day/Father's Day/Independence Day sales may or may not get me off my tuchas and into the fluorescent-lit wonderland that is my local Best Buy, but their latest ad makes me laugh and I am somewhat compelled to give them my money.

Check it out here: 

Why does this commercial work for me? Let's dissect it in typical geek fashion: 

1. (0:01) Best Buy Geek Girl is vaguely cute and approachable (also, redhead/brunette-with-ponytail is shorthand for geekgoddess). The actress is Wendy McColm  and she's a comedian with a few funny videos floating around the web and even a fan site (with an awesome name)! 

Could she be the next Felicia Day or Nicki Clyne or Jewel Staite or (my favorite nerd crush) Kari Byron? (Um, if you don't recognize any of those names -- why the heck are you reading this blog? Please go check out anything by Joss Whedon: ie. Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, Dollhouse, Buffy, etc., Battlestar Galactica, and Mythbusters. Seriously, bro, get on Netflix ASAP. You can thank me later.) 

 

If you stand any of these ladies next to a Victoria's Secret model or Maxim cover girl -- for the greater male population, there is no contest. But to us geeks, these are our muses and objects of desire -- mainly because we think they can fix an FTL drive or join us on a quest for an Elvish sword -- we value them for their brains as much as their busts. We would want to hang out with them because maybe they would want to hang out with us.

(**Ok, back to the commercial...) 

2. (0:02) Paintball is awesome. The fact that BBGG is in the midst of the action and overtly flinching is pretty hilarious (the CG projectiles aren't half bad either). Also makes us geeks think about the latest FPS games, especially CoD:MW3 -- coming out in  November!

3. (0:09) Wish fulfillment. If only we got cell phones to appease us when we misbehaved! Mooooom!

4. (0:13) Good acting. Give it up for BBGG for getting drenched and hanging in there. Chalk this one up to some ol' fashioned can-do. Funny.  Brava, Ms. McColm, brava.

5. (0:16) Inflames our tech lust. I don't have an iPad yet, but me wants it. Me wantsssssss it badly! That air guitar app looks pretty frakkin' cool and it looks like BBGG has no shame in trying to rock out. Always commendable.

6. (0:23) High-pitched screaming still makes us laugh. Add fart sounds and this might have been the perfect commercial. 

  

7. It's a commercial about summer, that doesn't make us feel bad for being geeks. It's not putting the emphasis on getting a tan, tossing a frisbee, and showing off a beach-ready body. It's saying: it's ok to be fat, pasty, and completely engrossed with your gadgets. There's nothing wrong with that, buddy. You can get some fresh air and still be the best nerd you can be. 

And for all these reasons: I love you, Best Buy. Here's my credit card.

GeekOmnivore Score: I get Reward Zone points for this, right? 

*images sourced from around the Web.