{"id":318032,"date":"2025-08-04T20:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318032\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T20:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:26:09","slug":"why-that-coinbase-ad-mocking-britain-has-hit-a-nerve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318032\/","title":{"rendered":"Why that Coinbase ad mocking Britain has hit a nerve"},"content":{"rendered":"

American cryptocurrency firm Coinbase appears to have touched a nerve here in the UK with its new musical advert<\/a>. Despite the ad not being broadcast due to Ofcom regulations around promoting crypto, it has still gone viral online. <\/p>\n

And no wonder. For many in the UK, Coinbase\u2019s satirical portrait of contemporary Britain rings a little too true. Entitled \u2018Everything is Fine\u2019, the two-minute-long ad sends up the UK as a rainy rubbish-strewn dump where people live in perpetual squalor, in the style of a number from Oliver!.<\/p>\n

It opens in a freezing, leaky house with a crumbling ceiling. \u2018We\u2019re cosy here at home, even though it\u2019s not our own, but wait a few more years, and who can say?\u2019, sing the tenants as they shiver and trawl through a sea of bills. \u2018Everything is just fine, everything is grand\u2019, they continue. \u2018Your life can get no better when you\u2019re living by the letter in this pleasant land.\u2019<\/p>\n

We see actors dance their way down a rat-infested street piled high with discarded rubbish \u2013 a nod to the bin strikes roiling Birmingham<\/a> earlier this year. And we listen to a woman at a supermarket checkout sing, \u2018These fish fingers are a steal. Just a hundred quid a meal!\u2019 \u2013 a reference to the deepening cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n

The ad concludes with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the hordes of wealthy Britons taking the first opportunity to leave the country<\/a>. \u2018We\u2019re doing our bit\u2019, sing a smartly dressed couple in a convertible. \u2018We\u2019re off to Dubai. It\u2019s time to jump ship.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Though we Brits would normally bristle at such harsh mockery from across the pond, that\u2019s not been the case here. That\u2019s because, for many of us, the ad\u2019s bleak portrayal of life in 21st-century Britain hits home. It certainly captures a widely held sense of national decline.<\/p>\n

The soaring cost of living has left almost half of UK adults<\/a> financially insecure, up from less than a third in the same position a decade ago. One recent survey<\/a> revealed that nearly one in five people struggle to pay their bills each month, while nearly half have little to nothing left over to save or spend on leisure.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a severe lack of investment, Britain\u2019s public services, from bin collection to transport, are in dire straits. As the ad suggests, Britain today feels like a country fast approaching breaking point.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour government seems incapable of rising to any of the challenges facing us. Indeed, one can easily picture Starmer himself skipping down the street chanting \u2018Everything is fine\u2019, given his government\u2019s unwillingness to face reality.<\/p>\n

\u2018If everything\u2019s fine, don\u2019t change anything\u2019 runs the ad\u2019s wry strapline. This could have been written as the mantra of our clueless, complacent political class.<\/p>\n

Georgina Mumford<\/strong> is a spiked intern.<\/p>\n

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We are funded by you. And in this era of cancel culture and advertiser boycotts, we rely on your donations more than ever. Seventy per cent of our revenue comes from our readers\u2019 donations \u2013 the vast majority giving just \u00a35 per month. If you make a regular donation \u2013 of \u00a35 a month or \u00a350 a year \u2013 you can become a