Ah, karma.

Just a week after City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman complained about insensitive “gag” placement in the Pioneer Press, KSTP-TV is reporting on an insensitive “gag” ad in City Pages.

Short version: the R.F. Moeller Jeweler ad accompanying Tommy Mischke’s CP column features a screaming guy with a gun to his head. (It’s on page 10.) The gag: he didn’t go to Moeller for his engagement ring. That upset one reader with mental illness who, according to KSTP, says that the condition “is a physical illness and that it is not humorous like the advertisement implies.”

R.F. Moeller, which didn’t pre-approve the ad (they farm out the writing and design to Mischke), is getting a pretty good roasting on its Facebook page. (One PiPress staffer also tweeted his outrage.)

The irony, of course, is that Mischke has had several well-publicized bouts with depression. I’m a fellow depressionista, and I was untroubled by the ad. I’m a Tommy fan, and know his sense of humor, and generally ascribe to the laugh-at-your-demons school of funny. However, given the reluctance of advertisers to lampoon, say, cancer kids, you don’t have to squint to see the bad taste.

Mischke was apologetic in the KSTP story, and he reiterated that to me. “I’m absolutely sorry that something I did caused this much pain. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel remorse that I caused people to feel this much pain.”

In the KSTP report, a spokesman for Bloomington-baed Suicide Awareness Voices in Education (SAVE) asserted that the ad goes beyond offensiveness; Dr. Dan Reidenberg believes the ad could be a potential killer: “The research supports that an ad just like this could put somebody who is already at risk to a point where they do if fact attempt to take their life.”

Serious stuff. Mischke says he corresponded with Reidenberg after the KSTP report ran, and sent him an email to be distributed via SAVE. (Reidenberg hasn’t gotten back to me yet, but it’s only been a couple of hours.) Here’s Mischke’s note:

Within the last week I created an ad for RF Moeller Jeweler, here in the Twin Cities, that depicted a man with a gun held to his head who was distraught because he had failed to buy his ring at the right jewelry store. He missed out on the right diamond at the right price and was overreacting a bit. The backlash from people in the mental health community has been fierce. If there is any irony here at all it's that the creator of the ad is a man whose been hospitalized more than once with severe depression and has had relatives attempt suicide.

This would be me.

I'm not sure why I'm made in such a way that ads like this can seem relatively harmless to me while being horribly offensive to others, but the fact is that's the reality. I went and made an ad without any sense whatsoever that it had something to do with mental illness or, for that matter, real world problems, and I've learned that's not how others perceive it. That happens in life sometimes.

We're not always in sync with the rest of existence, at least I’m not. My job, once I'm made aware of this chasm, however, is to decide what to do about it. The two options seem to be, get defensive or apologize. The decision is easy. When others are hurt by what I've said or done the response should always be the same: To simply say I'm sorry, and to promise not to let it happen again.

I am a radio personality and an ad man, a creative sort who likes to operate on, or near, the edge. The edge can be a dangerous place, because one can slip over it quite easily from time to time; go too far, upset people, however unintentionally. I've done that here, obviously.

As hard as it is to believe, the poor jewelry store had nothing to do with this ad. After close to 20 years of me handling all their creative work they no longer were overseeing what I was doing, nor asking to approve it. I was  given a tremendous amount of creative freedom and  simply told to make unconventional ads, that weren't boring, and that attracted attention (They clearly didn't mean this kind of attention). They are a victim here as much as anyone because they're taking all the flak for my error. I'm not being punished at all really.

Anyway, it's a big mess and I'm responsible for it, and all of the calls and letters have done a very effective job of showing me where the lines are and what side of them I best stay on.

The only thing I'll add is, for those people who say I'd see things differently if I had personal experience with this issue, you're wrong. First of all, I never thought of this guy in the ad as someone with a mental illness. To me he was just a cartoon character of sorts, a fantasy, a caricature. Secondly, my many years of clinical depression and the sadness that has come with watching people close to me try and take their lives has hardened me to many of life's travails. Humor has been the one outlet that has made it all a little less scary and has made death a little more powerless. I accept that I'm different in that way from many of you, that I see things from an odd perspective. What's important, however, is how I react to the perspective you have, a perspective that sees this as disrespectful and painful. I can only react one way, if I'm to be humane and decent. I can apologize, and once again let you know I won't make the mistake again. This is indeed my reaction. 

I hope it helps to read it.

Sincerely,
TD Mischke

There’s still an interesting question floating out there, which is, could an ad like that cause the horrific outcome Reidenberg fears?

Anything’s possible, of course. There is certainly ample research that, in some cases, media coverage has led to copycat suicides. The National Institute of Mental Health’s “Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media” begins: “Suicide Contagion is real.”

However, a 2003 epidemiological meta-study by Wayne State University Criminal Justice Prof. Steven Stack was more nuanced. Stack (who is linked from the SAVE site) found that real suicide stories were four times more likely to create copycat effects than fictional suicides: “People may identify with true-to-life suicides rather than make believe suicides in movies or soap operas.”

Of course, Mischke’s ad wasn’t a news story; whatever else you want to say about it, it’s fictional.  And Prof. Stack found an even more dependent variable: stories involving entertainers and celebrities were more than 14 times more likely to produce copycat effects than those without. Thankfully, Mischke didn’t use a picture of himself.

I’m also waiting for a callback from Prof. Stack, but given that the ad ran only once (as all the Moeller ads do in CP), the chance of someone offing themselves seems very, very, very small. A risk not worth taking? Probably. But as Wayaza psychiatrist Dr. Galen Stahle noted at the end of the KSTP piece, “It’s probably more in poor taste than dangerous. It’s just kind of silly.”