A low point of the American experiment.

Mammal torture porn operator Sea World is launching a new ad campaign to assure you, the onetime Sea World patron who's been eaten alive by guilt ever since you saw Blackfish, that everything is A-OK with those whales. They love whales!

In a word: yes. In seven words: Tim Gunn says, "Turn down for what." So does Heidi Klum. "Make it work," Gunn's talking-bobblehead saying, gets sliced and diced to the fauxlectro trap beat of "Turn Down for What," while Klum does rappy and Illuminati things with her hands, and it all feels not just like Project Runway has jumped the shark, but that all of pop culture has. Remember when the Pillsbury Doughboy rapped? This is worse times EDM. We're all going to hell, and it's going to look a lot like the Electric Daisy Carnival. Mark my words.

People seem to be upset about the fact that this Giant Food Stores ad in DC targeting Howard University students features a white person, but hey, cut em some slack. DC is different now. [via Washington Biz Journal]

When Adam Lanza shot dozens of people at Sandy Hook Elementary last Friday, he used a military-style Bushmaster .223 rifle. As America debates whether such weapons even have a place in our society, Bushmaster is running a hilarious ad campaign.

The Tracy Awards, honoring the year's worst ads, are now accepting nominations. And Consumerist is running its own "Worst Ad in America" contest. After three seconds of browsing here, we've located at least one strong candidate. Click to enlarge.

Yes, Quizno's Submarine Sandwich Shoppe is run by oven-lusting sex pervs, but guess what, Quizno's: you have crossed the line by allowing 2 Girls, 1 Cup to be associated with your sandwiches. Think, you fools.

A tipster sends us this photo of an actual advertisement in Sweden, which, she explains, is a result of the stubborn Swedes' tendency to believe their fancy schools actually teach them proper English. Psht:

Professional designer and amateur writer of excruciating ad copy Kenneth Cole knows times are tough as leather. Maybe it's not fashion-able, but he's optimistic America will design a solution to sew up all these problems!

In this age of fossil fuel depletion, economic meltdown, and a dying US auto industry, how should consumers pick an automobile? By bowing to the demands of the world's most terrifying screeching red-haired brat:

If you thought Microsoft's Seinfeld ads were bad, then you really don't want to see this new four-minute Microsoft "Songsmith" pseudoinfomercial. Because it is a descent into child karaoke hell, is why. Very bad.

Voice your choice! Earlier we showed you three of the year's most annoying TV ads; now we've added two more, and made a poll—of infamy. Vote below for the year's worst ad:

Just in time for the collapse of America's housing market, a blog called Keepin' It Realtor has taken on the important job of chronicling the "best" of real estate ads—the ones consisting of desperate-looking realtors who plaster their own faces on billboards and bus stops and, apparently, write their own ad copy. How many ways are there to make awkward puns involving the word "Sold?" At least four, so far:

While doubtless in pursuit of some important story yesterday, angry ad blogger Copyranter came across this adventure in contextual advertising on the dedicated Sarah Palin web page of Alaska's Anchorage Daily News: ads for SHRED ALASKA onsite document shredding. Ha, can they shred Yahoo accounts, ha? A new ad on the Palin page today also seems appropriate, in its own way:

Ever since they started allowing kissing in Bollywood movies, boy, India's morality is going to straight to hell. The cow-filled conservative nation is seeing its Victorian standards of sexuality crumble in the face of racy foreign advertising. The prime offender? You guessed it: Axe Body Spray. Of course. The Indian government recently banned Axe's infamous "Chocolate Man" ad, which it sees as a symptom of cultural decline, along with all the new sexy billboards popping up across the country. Welcome to the First World, India: Where products are plentiful, sex is empty, and Richard Gere can kiss your women with abandon. After the jump, the ass-eating Axe ad that was too hot for Mumbai. There is no stopping it:

It may well be within the realm of human achievement to make an ad for Hair Club For Men that does not cause an involuntary shudder of revulsion. But this is not that ad. This is an ad where a bald man goes to Hair Club to grow a curly mullet, and is then fawned over by his own comely "stepdaughter." "Is that your stepdad...oh my gosh, he's not too bad looking!" Christ, why, why? All the disturbing subtext you can fit in one minute:

Fast food is essentially made up of low-quality byproducts of better food. Leftover cow parts, ground pig parts... you can use your imagination. So it's best for fast food companies to stick with happy clowns and assorted other mascots in their ads, staying as far as possible from any image that could make you consider what's actually in the food you're buying. And they should especially make sure they never draw any parallels between their product and human flesh. I mean, yuck. So tell us, McDonald's, what went wrong here?:

It was quite an embarrassment for the nation of Spain yesterday when an ad surfaced showing their entire national Olympic basketball team posing in the "Slanty-eyed Asian" position, pulling their eyelids back. We imagine the photo shoot was followed by several minutes of mimed karate moves and Enter The Dragon reenactments, only adding to the awkwardness. So the entire nation of China has been waiting expectantly for an apology. And today they got...outrage that anyone would think Spain is racist! Why, some of their closest friends are from China or somewhere like that!

Perhaps we need a "Text-only" law for condom advertising. Leaving prophylactic communications in the hands of human art directors is just too risky-particularly when you're dealing with the strange sexual mores of foreigners. Because while the result might come off nice and cute (like the Chinese Olympic condom ads), there's an equal chance that it will be grotesque. This Belgian ad campaign for super-thin condoms has Photoshopped a man and a woman together into a terrifying image of a conjoined connubial monstrosity. I know Europeans have different ideas of "personal space," but really. Click through for two full (freaky but SFW) ads:

The Olympics, we're told, is a delicate dance of geopolitical maneuvering dressed up as an athletic contest. In reality, it's the world's largest assembly of dumb jocks. All of whom are now in a position to cause international incidents! Spain and China may have poisoned their diplomatic relationship because the entire Spanish national basketball team thought it would be cute to make an ad for some courier company posing with the "Slanty-eyed Asian" gesture: fingers pulling the eyelids to make them slits. I imagine they were all saying "Ah, soooo" at the time and laughing uproariously. The full photo is bad enough that someone should have realized it was mistake: