The John Lewis Christmas advert has dropped. It's business as usual for the brand, which has to live up to the high expectations of the nation every year.
The two-minute clip shows a six-year-old called Lily trying to reach an old man who lives alone in a hut on the moon. She spies him through the family telescope – available to buy in stores, and eventually reaches him by buying him his own telescope so that he can peer back at her on earth.
John Lewis have played it especially safe this year, keeping the same narrative as some of their most successful campaigns. The main character is someone cute - this year a little girl. Last year it was a little boy and the year before that, it was a rabbit. The main character realises that someone else is lonely at Christmas, like the old man, or Monty the Penguin in 2014 and the bear in 2013, and set about making them feel included by buying them a present.
Despite the predicable nature of thestory of little Lily making friends with an old man, Twitter could not suspend its cynicism.
Twitter handled the launch with a healthy amount of cynicism, as expected.
Not everyone thought it was much of a tearjerker:
Some tried to guess the identity of the Man on the Moon:
Some people shrugged it off entirely.
Some people pointed out that the whole thing is designed to make us buy stuff:
Others said John Lewis was the enemy of science:
Best of all is the ever-patient Mr John Lewis, the man who owns the @JohnLewis Twitter handle, who can usually be relied on to take identity mix-ups pretty well.
