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An Open Letter To Best Buy: Please Stop Using The Video Of Me Getting My Head Caught In A Screen Door As The Demo Video In Your TV Section

To the good people of Best Buy,

I write to you as a longtime loyal customer of the Best Buy organization. I have bought many electronics from your stores in the past, and hope to continue doing the same in the future. I would, however, like to make one request: Please stop using the footage of me getting my head stuck in a screen door as the demo video for your TV department.

Best Buy, I ask that you move quickly to remedy this.

So we’re clear, the clip I’m referring to is the one where, during a brief moment of distraction at my son’s first Communion party, I ran full-speed into the screen door of my patio, an event regrettably captured by my wife’s brother. As this video that currently plays on every make and model of TV available for purchase at Best Buy clearly shows, the accident left me flailing for nearly three minutes while I tried to extricate myself without cutting my neck on the screen shards. Even worse, the video loops back to the beginning just moments before I shimmied my way out of the whole mess—a cruel bit of editing that serves to exaggerate my helplessness.

This footage depicts a humiliating experience in my life, and reliving the event on several dozen crystal-clear 4K displays in your store—where my friends and neighbors can see—only amplifies the shame I feel for my momentary lapse in attention. Maybe watching it would be more palatable if it weren’t also accompanied by thundering Dolby 5.1 surround sound that makes my whimpering request for my wife’s brother to help sound like full-throated wailing.

This footage depicts a humiliating experience in my life, and reliving the event on several dozen crystal-clear 4K displays in your store—where my friends and neighbors can see—only amplifies the shame I feel for my momentary lapse in attention.

I had initially thought the footage was confined to my home store at the Crabtree Mall in Raleigh, NC, but after stopping to pick up a USB car adapter while on a business trip, I can say that you are using it in stores as far away as Tampa, FL. That location even had it playing on the LG smartphones in a completely different area of the store.

This has to stop. Please, find it in your heart to demonstrate the capabilities of your high-definition displays using a clip that doesn’t humiliate a devoted father of three. I hope you make the right decision, because if this does not change soon, I’ll be forced to go elsewhere for many purchases I have planned.