Regressive Ad Campaign: Part 1



By Sage Ann

This story is set in the incredible world created by AlteredStates14. Her universe is brought to life not through traditional written narratives, but through a powerful collection of images—advertisements, media articles, and other visual artifacts—that vividly capture everyday life in her setting.
All images associated with this story are her original work. Please consider supporting her so we can continue to explore and enjoy more of this fascinating world.
You can find her work here:
 https://www.deviantart.com/alteredstates14
Another author has also written a story based in this universe from a different perspective. You can find it here:
 https://www.deviantart.com/fatherfish/art/Pampers-and-Propaganda-1028729633



Kalie slouched at the kitchen counter, homework spread before her like casualties on a battlefield, while her sister Mary flicked through channels on the living room TV. Their mother's keys jangled in the front door lock—the fifteen-second warning system they'd grown accustomed to—before she swept in with grocery bags dangling from her wrists and exhaustion hanging from her eyes. Thursday night, same as any other, until Kalie glanced up at the television and caught sight of something that made her pencil pause mid-equation.
"Did you see that?" Kalie squinted at the screen, now displaying a car commercial.
Mary, sprawled across the couch with one leg hooked over its arm, didn't look up from her phone. "See what?"
"That ad. It was for... I don't know. Something about teenagers in diapers?" The words sounded absurd leaving her mouth, and Kalie almost laughed.
Mary's nose wrinkled. "Gross. No. Mom, did you get those chips I asked for?"
Their mother was already halfway to her bedroom, heels kicked off somewhere between the door and kitchen. "On the counter. Homework done by nine, both of you."
Kalie returned to her calculus problems, the strange advertisement dissolving like sugar in the back of her mind. Probably a joke commercial for some adult comedy show. She shuffled her papers, relegating the thought to the folder of things not worth remembering.
But three days later, walking the four blocks to the bus stop, Kalie stopped short beneath a billboard she'd passed a hundred times before. Where there had once been an advertisement for tooth whitening strips now loomed an image of a smiling mother with her arm around a teenage girl—maybe sixteen—in pink pajamas. The girl was holding what was unmistakably a package of adult-sized diapers. The tagline read: "Remember when they were easier to manage? Turn back time with BabyAgain™."
Kalie's stomach did a slow, uncomfortable roll. She stared, waiting for the punchline, for smaller text revealing it was an ad for a Netflix series or a PSA about something else entirely. Nothing. Just a smiling mother, a teenage girl with an expression of placid contentment, and adult diapers.
The bus arrived, and Kalie climbed aboard, her backpack suddenly feeling heavier than it had moments before. The strange billboard receded through the grimy window, but the image remained imprinted on her thoughts through first and second periods.
During her free period, Kalie wandered into the school library to catch up on a history assignment. She slid into a chair near the magazine rack and reached for a copy of Time. But her hand froze, hovering over a parenting magazine whose cover featured another teenage girl—this one in a childish dress with ruffles—sitting on her mother's lap. The headline: "The ReParenting Revolution: Why Mothers Are Taking Back Control."
"Weird, right?" 
Kalie jumped. The librarian—a woman with silver-streaked hair and glasses that magnified her eyes into owlish proportions—had appeared beside her.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you." The librarian adjusted a stack of books in her arms. "We've been getting a lot of those magazines lately. Donations. I keep meaning to review them before putting them out, but..." She shrugged, the universal gesture of too much to do, too little time.
"Is it some kind of joke?" Kalie picked up the magazine gingerly, as if it might bite.
The librarian's mouth puckered. "If it is, it's in poor taste. But they seem legitimate. There's been articles in some of the psychology journals too." She moved on, disappearing between the stacks.
Kalie flipped through the magazine, her discomfort growing with each glossy page. Articles about "regression therapy" and "reclaiming maternal authority." Advertisements for oversized cribs and changing tables scaled for teenage bodies. A photoshoot of mothers and daughters in matching outfits—the daughters in childish styles, some with visible diaper lines beneath their clothing.
She closed the magazine and pushed it away, a shiver running through her that had nothing to do with the library's aggressive air conditioning.
That evening, as Mary subjected her to a blow-by-blow account of middle school drama while they washed and dried dishes, Kalie interrupted: "Have you seen those weird ads about teenage girls in diapers?"
Mary paused, soapy plate in hand. "Oh, you mean the BabyAgain thing? Yeah, Leila's sister said there's a girl in her chemistry class who comes to school in Pull-Ups now." She resumed scrubbing. "Her mom makes her wear them. Isn't that, like, child abuse or something?"
Kalie took the plate, wiping it with mechanical precision. "I don't know. It's just... strange. Do you think there are many parents who actually want to do that to their kids?"
Mary shrugged, the embodiment of fifteen-year-old nonchalance. "People are weird. Remember that lady at your elementary school who still spoon-fed her fifth-grader?"
Their mother passed through the kitchen, a blur of movement in worn jeans and an ancient Columbia sweatshirt, her third outfit of the day. She plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and her laptop from the charging station, disappeared into her home office, closing the door with a soft click. The familiar sound of her conference call voice—professional, controlled, slightly higher-pitched than her normal speaking tone—filtered through the thin wall.
"Mom's too busy to even notice if we've done our laundry, let alone put us in diapers," Mary said, handing Kalie the last pot. "Besides, she's always going on about how we need to be more independent."
Kalie nodded absently. Their mother was the living embodiment of efficiency—a single parent with a corporate job who managed to keep food in the refrigerator and the mortgage paid. She treated her daughters less like children and more like roommates with curfews, expecting them to handle their own day-to-day needs. The idea of her suddenly wanting to baby them was as plausible as her deciding to quit her job and join the circus.
Later that night, while scrolling through Instagram, Kalie's feed interrupted itself with an ad—a cheerful video of a mother helping her teenage daughter into a diaper, the girl's face a mask of contentment. The mother in the video looked directly at the camera and said, "She's happier this way. And so am I."
Kalie slammed her laptop closed, her fingers tingling with a nervous energy. The ads were everywhere now, seeping into every corner of media like water finding cracks in concrete. She couldn't comprehend it—couldn't fathom why any mother would want to strip her teenage daughter of independence, or why any girl would accept such treatment. It was bizarre, disturbing.
And yet, as she crawled into bed, a small, rational part of her mind whispered: it's just marketing. Some company trying to create a market where none existed. No sane parent would actually buy into this. It was a failed campaign in the making, a bizarre footnote in advertising history. Nothing to worry about.
Nothing at all.