Why all the to-do about women’s gitch?

The ad campaign: MTV and U by Kotex team up to Save the Undies (MTV, Much, E! and VEVO) The moment: The Undie Waving

In four one-minute spots, attractive young women stand in a dressing room, answer questions about their periods and take duck-face selfies with their panties. Seriously.

Maripier Morin, identified as “Montreal It Girl,” reveals that she wears different types of panties for work and sleep (gasp!).

Etalk reporter Liz Trinnear announces that when she’s on her period, “If I want that chocolate, I’m going to eat that chocolate.” She also debunks the myth that one shouldn’t dye one’s hair during “that time. I talked to my hairdresser about this last night!” she cries passionately.

The Baker Twins, ID’d as “Much Digital Studios creators,” confide that they wish someone had taught them to use a tampon. Tasha Leelyn, also a Digital Studios creator, proclaims that her “period spirit animal” is a tiger and advises, “Be proud of your undies. It’s part of being a girl.”

Is this campaign a healthy embrace of female biology or the ultimate end point of narcissism? Do we really need to fetishize every single thing that happens to us? What’s next? Air Wick celebrates breathing with a “You breathe, girl” campaign?

In the text that accompanies these ads on MTV’s website, a Kimberly-Clark spokeswoman avers, “Women across Canada lose millions of pairs of underwear each year due to failed period protection” — a sentence so solemn it’s almost parody.

Infomercials like these seek to erase the line between telling us something and selling us something, leaving only a faint, rusty stain to remind us it was ever there. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She appears Monday through Thursday.