Google’s Mother’s Day ad a billion-dollar tearjerker

You may not want to cry. You may say to yourself, “This is actually an advertisement for a multi-billion-dollar technology company. I refuse to be emotionally manipulated by an advertisement for a multi-billion-dollar technology company.”

Then you click on the video because of course you do. The Internet has only been around for two decades but it’s already irreparably altered our hard-wiring and that hard-wiring is permanently set to “click here.”

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And so the one-minute Google Mother’s Day commercial begins. You watch as flashes of adorable babies whiz by. New moms excitedly embracing their newborns. Children growing up and doing the adorable things they do that are only adorable because they’re children.

You may have felt a lump or two in the throat by now. You’re definitely smiling. Not smiling is impossible unless your heart is made from a lump of coal.

Soon the real manipulation starts. That’s when a future grandma explodes into her daughter’s arms upon learning her not-so-little-anymore girl is pregnant. A mother embracing her son who has just come out should be the point where you’re blubbering. The toddler jumping into his mother’s arms after she returns from her military tour is the point when you concede defeat.

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Google, you did it again. Damn you, Google.

Now’s the time to start thinking of how you’re going to honour the special mother or mother-figure in your life on Sunday. No gifts or cards necessary (unless she likes that) as there are many, many other ways to show her how much you love and appreciate her.

But IRL, please.