Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this train of thought, I will say that a Kia was the first thing I ever owned. That was in 1988, and it was a red bicycle…and I was five. The first Kia car I saw was the absolutely horrid Sephia sedan, one of which my mother owned for a time. They were the epitome of “shitbox”, had quality control that made 1950’s era Mopars look good and had a 0-60 time measured in minutes. Nowadays the quality has greatly improved and so have the cars, a by-product of being the little brother of Hyundai. And if you want to know how far Hyundai has come, re-read Brian’s review of the Hyundai Equus luxury sedan here. Leaps and bounds, indeed.

That being said, if the Equus and Kia K900 are the upper end, then the Kia Soul is the funky little toaster-looking thing that I guess is supposed to attract Millenial buyers and grandmothers who like it’s cute styling. Nothing I’m really into, not that sporty, not that stylish, and not that practical as a vehicle. It’s an appliance with a key. And now, it’s an appliance with a key and a charge port. They are making a Soul EV now, and honestly, it’s not that bad of an idea: take a city car and adapt an electric motor. At least it doesn’t look like a cross between a doorstop and a suppository like the Prius does. But the Soul does have one thing that grates my freakin’ nerves: the Hamsters.

Since the Soul’s debut in 2008, the Hamsters have been the car’s signature marketing item, appearing in advertisements created by the David&Goliath advertising agency that end up going viral on YouTube and other sharing sites. Basically, there are three half-costume, half-computer animated anthropomorphic hamsters that get down and funky with a popular dance song and a Kia Soul involved somewhere. (And not like that, you sickos.)

The first ad wasn’t too bad, they were just doing the “Night at the Roxbury” head nod as they drove a Soul while other hamsters were in hamster balls. Meh, nothing to it. They did an ad making fun of toasters, cubes and washing machines as cars using Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours” and I smirked a little, nothing wrong with calling out the competition. Then they did LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” during a robotic Armageddon. Then Psy’s “Gagnam Style” at an opera. And things started to go from cute to annoying rapidly. When the Soul got a visual makeover in 2014, we were subjected to watching the fluffy trio work out in order to trim down and get buff, like the car supposedly had, to Lady GaGa’s “Applause”. At no point…NO POINT WHATSOEVER…was it necessary to demonstrate a tiny car losing weight by showing a fluffy human-sized rodent in a banana hammock.

Now, for the Soul EV, we get a “Weird Science” throwback involving three dorky hamsters who are once again fluffy…so much for the diet, huh, fellas?…who accidentally turn one of their normal-sized friends into a girl hamster in a black catsuit. Spurned on by the idea, they raid a pet store and create a hamster harem. Yeah, think about that for a second. What the hell were the advertisers thinking? I assure you that it is going to take more than an electric Kia to pull that kind of weight with the ladies. Usually it requires a celebrity with a black credit card and a Maybach.

I understand that it takes creative advertising to hawk small cars that normally wouldn’t sell well on their own, and I applaud Kia for at least finding a creative way to market them. But watching three hamsters happily genetically engineer a field of hamster groupies for themselves to sell and electric vehicle is just too much. No matter what kind of cute spin the advertisers put on it, it’s a near-impossibility to …how to phrase this properly?…”get lots of dates” with a Kia Soul EV. And I promise you, if you somehow managed, she will have a cat or thirteen. And that’s not good for a hamster.