I had never heard of Skinny, but it’s apparently a New Zealand provider of mobile telephony and data plans. In 2020, they launched an apparently quite big advertisement campaign centred — at least in theory — on normal people encouraging their friends to join them in Skinny’s customer base. To enhance the effect, these allegedly normal people1 are shown alone in situations that usually involve two people, like at a romantic dinner, on a seesaw, or at a chessboard.
When I first saw this ad, I didn’t put it on my to-do list. The protagonist is sitting at an untouched chessboard and makes just a single move.2 How on Earth could I possibly write about that? Especially since h1 is a white square! Well, after a second look it turns out that I once more underestimated the total amount of stupidity out there..
After he has played his one move — 1.e4, by the way — the position looks like this:3
Aah! Aah! Noo! What have you wrought?! Even if you’re one of those idiots that don’t know where the knights and bishops go you should at least know they’re placed symmetrically! And what’s with white’s misplaced royalty?
When I encounter a ridiculous position it’s often because people have tried for something interesting and have thereby overreached their abilities. These people, however, have overreached their abilities by trying absolutely nothing. Pathetic.4
Realism: 0/5 Of course you are alone, you horrid little man! How could you do this to our beautiful game? And how could you ever expect someone to join you?
Probable winner: The dark prince, the lord of the flies, whatever name you want to give the evil that lurks in the hearts of men, gnawing on their conscious and nature.
1. [I don’t buy it, though. Normal people don’t care about their friends’ phone programs.] ↩
2. [As single as himself.] ↩
3. [The editor looks like this.] ↩
4. [And not in the Tchaikovsky 6 sense.] ↩