By now, if you don’t know a war has begun between all things cycling and ward of the state General Motors, it’s probably because you’ve been watching a guy on a mountain bike getting t-boned by an antelope over and over all day.

Basically, GM released this shitty ad targeting college students, claiming you’re a loser if you ride a bike.

BikePortland.org had what’s become the definitive reaction, and everyone else has weighed in with an opinion about how completely inexcusable it is, but what I found the strangest about all of this–and the least frequently mentioned–is that the whole concept behind the ad is way beyond just uninspired.

The ad itself is indicative of the kind of snarky, faux-hipster meanness that marks most corporations’ sorry attempts to reach consumers in the age of social media. “Look how edgy we are, kids,” it says. “Who just dropped the word ‘sucks’ in a print ad? We did, ’cause we be keeping in real.”

Yes. Oh look, GM isn’t afraid to make fun of people, even if they clearly suck at it. Aside from the fact that goofing on a guy for riding a bike to class is now akin to making fun of him because he doesn’t smoke, there’s still that cold fact that old corporations make tired jokes. Seriously, on most campuses in the real world circa 2011, the guy on the bike is laughing at the poor bastard trying to find a place to park his pickup truck. What’s next, GM? Maybe you could make fun of those hippies with their bell bottoms.

Thing is, I know we have to legally treat corporations as people now, but that doesn’t mean we have to like those people. And we don’t expect them to be our friends. In fact, we’d usually prefer it if they just stayed corporations. Sometimes, we’d rather just order the chicken for dinner without needing to know its name. Sometimes in the rush to “socialize” with us, big companies like GM seem to forget this.

Listen, GM, we’re not even back to the point were we can trust your cars not to drop an axle leaving the lot, burn a tank of gas a day, and kill us when their steering wheels fall off, so don’t let’s get all fancy trying to be “down” with us. Instead, tell you what: you make the fucking cars, and we’ll socialize and joke with one another. Speaking of which, here’s a good one that’s making the rounds right now: have you seen that dumbass GM ad? Let’s boycott that shit.