Coming soon
Coming soon is a staple in the advertising business, a sure-fire way to entice the consumer about an imminent product that provides great new value. Coming soon arouses interest despite leaving unanswered two of the five staple interrogatives of journalism, namely: What? and When? Suffice it to say that something, or someone, is coming, and in excitingly short order.
History[edit]
The history of the phrase Coming soon is intertwined with the tendency of marketing departments to promise products long before they can possibly be delivered. The computer industry especially took advantage of the phrase when the typical version-one product turned out to be a trade-show mock-up that had virtually none of the advertised features implemented. However, Version 2.0 would be coming soon.
In movie-making[edit]
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Hollywood lives by the phrase, as original features never live up to the hype, but an interminable parade of sequels are coming soon that might deliver what the original did not, or at least offer proof that everyone is everyone else's sibling.
The phrase is used most in the genre of pornography, and despite the fact that coming soon is the primary occupational hazard. Modern topical tranquilizers have replaced four-ply elephant-skin condoms to ensure that no one is coming soon, and that the Feature Presentation grinds on for at least fifteen minutes, delighting moviegoers despite a stunningly repetitive script.
No fewer than three feature-length productions — none of them pornography, except perhaps the Thai one — have adopted the phrase as the actual title of the movie, enabling cinemas worldwide to pat themselves on the back for the cleverness of announcing that Coming Soon is coming soon. A 1999 feature was Ashton Kutcher's virgin performance, revolving around virginity but containing fewer brief glimpses than limousine doors opening at the start of the red carpet to the year's Oscars.® It was rated NSFW-17 — outrageous for a chick-flick with utterly no hamburger shots — 96 minutes of pampered high-school students who seemingly have everything but can never figure out anything.
The picture laid the groundwork for Sex and the City, the television series that won awards for stringing the viewer along for six full seasons on the premise that fulfillment, happiness, a plot, character development, or realistic dialogue would all be coming soon.
In music[edit]
Surely no one can forget the Queen song of the same name, even though it was safely hidden on the "B" side of the album, was upstaged by Crazy Little Thing Called Love, was never performed in concert, and even Wikipedia cannot seem to figure out what it was about.
Nor will the reader neglect the Latvian rock band by the same name, comprising musicians whose names were as hard to pronounce as English seems to have been for them. The band followed two sure-fire Baltic formulas for success: Adopt the name of a famous song, and sing in a famous language. The band was formed in 2005 and went on "hiatus" in 2009, meaning that a reunification and re-launch are, wait for it, coming soon.
In public policy[edit]
The upcoming campaign season will feature promises that voter satisfaction will be coming soon. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party will show signs of aligning with the interests of labour, with results coming soon. In America, for example, voters will be irresistibly lured to
- Democrats by the promise of income equality, racial equality, lots of jobs (the good-paying kind), and affordable products — all delivered by the same bureaucrats, enjoying complete impunity; and to
- Republicans by the promise of reform and return to Constitutional roots, in the round just after they graciously concede to the opposition to prove how respectable they are, and ignore the Tea Party in favor of Exxon, which isn't too principled to contribute the maximum amount in each election cycle.
As with Hollywood, the national capitals will promise interminable sequels, none differing from the original.