It started off as funny. Watching the ‘ultra-cool’ Madden brothers – Joel and Benji, they of Good Charlotte fame – slowly familiarise themselves with Australian culture was a bit of a harmless laugh. But after a week or so of our TV sets being saturated with their studded, denim-clad, tattooed images awkwardly associating with marketing directors and random youths in ‘typical Aussie situations’ it very quickly went from fun, to corny, to cringeworthy and now… Well, now it has become absolutely painful and we’ve decided it can go on no more. Enough’s enough, guys. I mean, haven’t you sufficiently polluted our airwaves? Over the years we’ve watched you whinge about people who were more successful than you, only to see you become one of those very same rich and famous, and join the over-indulged celebrity lifestyle circuit. Now we have to stand by covering our eyes and peeping through the gaps between our fingers as you turn your back on PETA just to appear on KFC ads. Next you demonstrate a total lack of respect for cricket. Yes – there are many, many people don’t like that sport, but you don’t see them appearing in ads promoting it and claiming they could “get out there and play”. Well, you know what, Benji? Do it. Let’s see how your oddly shaped head fares against the best fast bowlers in the world. It would be fascinating to see what you’re hiding under that hat of yours. And now you’re gearing up do it all over again with Vodafone. Look, no hard feelings, yeah, Maddens? Our beef isn’t so much with you as it is with that guy you played lawn bowls with in one of your first ads. You know, the guy wearing the sports coat and board shorts, also known as the out-of-touch middle-aged marketing director attempting to connect with a much younger market but will insist on using words such as ‘groovy’ without a hint of irony. This hypothetical person has told you that we like this sort of thing, that there isn’t a massive stigma of being a wanker should you do these ads. This person has viciously lied to you. Australians, as members of a nation that, in just a few hundred short years, has become one of the largest and most fruitful economies in the developed world, we just can’t do this to ourselves. So this is our chance – let’s set the Madden bros free. If they’re as cool as they’re making out they are then they’ll have more work in an instant…which is fine. As long as it’s not here.