Much is being made of Gillette's latest ad. Personally, if yo ask me, it's rather insulting and rests on the notion of 'toxic masculinity' which really isn't even a thing much like 'white privilege'. It's just a constructed generalization dreamed up by sociologists Marxists and has seeped into the mainstream.
What makes the ad all the more infuriating, aside from the disjointed logic, is the focus on white males as doing the bullying (as if bullying among girls isn't real. In fact, a case can be made it's worse) while taking care to make sure blacks are well portrayed.
It's all so paternalistic and cynical. Anyone with half a brain can see this for what it is.
If not, the fact Ana Kasparian from TYT is featured says a lot about the people who put this tripe together. Look her up on youtube. She's a peach. One may say a toxic muser of political issues. Why they settled on her is truly perplexing.
So for me, this attempt was an epic fail. Enough so for me to stop purchasing Gillette products. I know it's part of the Proctor & Gamble group but one need not expand it to its roster of products to make a point. The razors are enough. Calling for a boycott is not necessary. If people are annoyed they can do so privately and quietly to send a real message. If not, so be it. Besides, boycotts don't generally work.
But there's a bigger issue here. Why do corporations virtue signal?
Is it an attempt to jolt poor sales? Gillette allegedly has been struggling with new competitors but what kind of an incompetent board room signs off on such a commercial? 'Hey, you know the target market and demographic we desperately need? Yeh, let's make a commercial bashing them for being white males and that they need to do better since they're the source of bad things. That'll hook them in!' High fives all around.
Wouldn't surprise me if there was some of that.
My take nevertheless, is they do it because it's a hedge for them. They can show they're sensitive to the issues of the day (perceived or real) by claiming to engage in dialog with its consumers. They assume that a new breed of men are on the horizon and figure to cash in.
Except the whole notion of 'toxic masculinity' is a myth. Its source, when you trace it all down, to - hello - critical theory. Which in itself finds its origins in Marxism. The world is divided into the oppressors-oppressed calculus and it all flows from there. White men are the oppressors. Period.
Personally, I'm old fashioned and adhere to the philosophy to stick with what you know and do your jobs. One need only to listen to faux-righteous twits like Tim Cook to see it's a better play to focus on providing products your consumers need rather than lecture them about the issues in society - and how one group is more culpable than another. They haven't noticed yet the inherent contradiction of the message of 'let's be united' while at the same time bashing white, heterosexual males.
It's tangled web they should avoid.
But the trend of 'corporations with a conscience' is now an integral part of how a corporation operates now. They all display their 'values' on their website. You know, the ones where they try with a straight face to tell us they do business in a very dignified manner. All you need is one shit head salesman to debunk such gunk. And see if that salesperson is a top producer if the company fires them.
Again. Don't get into that shit.
It's okay to do what McDonald's does with the Ronald McDonald House. That's a tangible, noble project people actually need and can use.
No one needs to be lectured about 'toxic masculinity'. You leave yourself open to all sorts of fair criticism. For example, as I noted, what about female bullying? What about the obscene break down of the family and rise of single-parent households? What about the destruction of black families and black on black crime?
These are issues that can be demonstrated and backed up with facts.
Or, given Gillette sells to men, the real travesty of the treatment of men in family courts over custody battles and alimony?
That's real.
Or the fact men live less than women because we work harder and longer, taking greater risks and go to war on a far greater percentage than women? Men reach stress levels that literally kill them.
And the vast majority of us do it with respect and pride. We're not out there looking to fucking rape women. The vast majority aim to raise our kids properly and with dignity.
But there's no currency in any of this. A corporation isn't gonna win friends with those things. You can't, after all, win friends with salad.
When I listen to marketing men and 'woke' CEO's, I'm reminded why I'm glad I'm not in the corporate world. Some of the most facile and easily manipulated to social trends I met were in corporate board rooms. But hey, the CEO gets to fly around the world so he or she (or it) knows, right?
Yeah. No.
The truth is, corporations have little to lose in engaging in this. Take Nike with the Kaepernick campaign. It makes no difference to them Kap's assertions could be refuted, that they genuinely upset good people, that he were socks depicting cops as pigs or that he wore a Castro t-shirt. Or that he hangs out with despicable (anti-semites) individuals like Linda Sarsour.
Who cares about those things?
What matters is the hair, the fist pumping and that he (willingly) chose to end his career and then tried to make it look like racism was at play when he couldn't get a job. Maybe there was collusion I don't know but he's the author of a lot of what transpired. Image is greater than truth.
What matters is the zeitgeist and how corporations can capitalize on it. Let's call it 'virtue-coin'.
It's a calculated hedge and it's a smart play strictly speaking. Nike is willing to lose on Kap because they cam make it up elsewhere. They're too established to lose everything over one bad campaign. They know what they're doing and probably discounted any potential backlash into their actuarial assessments. Companies - small or big - do this sort of thing all the time. That is, make decisions independent of their bottom financial lines.
Just this week my niece asked me for a job. Although my business at the moment is in a precarious situation financially, I hired her (part-time for now) because she's family and that she should learn what it's like to run a business. If anything, it can help to inoculate her from divisive idiots like Tlaib, Sanders, Warren and Ocasio-Corrrrrtez and their anti-business screeds.
Same with Starbucks. Although, they're really getting stupid about it and makes one wonder what is going through their minds giving out needles in bathrooms. For now, this idiocy is restricted to the United States. My daughter goes to Starbucks because it's right next to her school but you bet you damn ass I'm watching them.
Her well-being is my concern and couldn't care less about their need to virtue signal on my time and at the risk of potentially hurting her.
Starbucks, incidentally, is off my list of places to go to. It's just too much.
Same goes for companies taking a laughable stance against Trump.
Just do your damn jobs and spare us the lectures.
And now Gillette has thrown its hat into the ring. Soon it'll blow over. What will come of it who knows?
I fully expect companies to continue to be 'activists' for the next little while.
But.
I reckon one day, the people studying our time are going to look back on this period as an embarrassment.
Not that the people who pimp this stuff - they truly see themselves as sparking progress - will ever admit it.
Alas, history will record the names. It'll be written in the wind.
****
Food for thought:
What makes the ad all the more infuriating, aside from the disjointed logic, is the focus on white males as doing the bullying (as if bullying among girls isn't real. In fact, a case can be made it's worse) while taking care to make sure blacks are well portrayed.
It's all so paternalistic and cynical. Anyone with half a brain can see this for what it is.
If not, the fact Ana Kasparian from TYT is featured says a lot about the people who put this tripe together. Look her up on youtube. She's a peach. One may say a toxic muser of political issues. Why they settled on her is truly perplexing.
So for me, this attempt was an epic fail. Enough so for me to stop purchasing Gillette products. I know it's part of the Proctor & Gamble group but one need not expand it to its roster of products to make a point. The razors are enough. Calling for a boycott is not necessary. If people are annoyed they can do so privately and quietly to send a real message. If not, so be it. Besides, boycotts don't generally work.
But there's a bigger issue here. Why do corporations virtue signal?
Is it an attempt to jolt poor sales? Gillette allegedly has been struggling with new competitors but what kind of an incompetent board room signs off on such a commercial? 'Hey, you know the target market and demographic we desperately need? Yeh, let's make a commercial bashing them for being white males and that they need to do better since they're the source of bad things. That'll hook them in!' High fives all around.
Wouldn't surprise me if there was some of that.
My take nevertheless, is they do it because it's a hedge for them. They can show they're sensitive to the issues of the day (perceived or real) by claiming to engage in dialog with its consumers. They assume that a new breed of men are on the horizon and figure to cash in.
Except the whole notion of 'toxic masculinity' is a myth. Its source, when you trace it all down, to - hello - critical theory. Which in itself finds its origins in Marxism. The world is divided into the oppressors-oppressed calculus and it all flows from there. White men are the oppressors. Period.
Personally, I'm old fashioned and adhere to the philosophy to stick with what you know and do your jobs. One need only to listen to faux-righteous twits like Tim Cook to see it's a better play to focus on providing products your consumers need rather than lecture them about the issues in society - and how one group is more culpable than another. They haven't noticed yet the inherent contradiction of the message of 'let's be united' while at the same time bashing white, heterosexual males.
It's tangled web they should avoid.
But the trend of 'corporations with a conscience' is now an integral part of how a corporation operates now. They all display their 'values' on their website. You know, the ones where they try with a straight face to tell us they do business in a very dignified manner. All you need is one shit head salesman to debunk such gunk. And see if that salesperson is a top producer if the company fires them.
Again. Don't get into that shit.
It's okay to do what McDonald's does with the Ronald McDonald House. That's a tangible, noble project people actually need and can use.
No one needs to be lectured about 'toxic masculinity'. You leave yourself open to all sorts of fair criticism. For example, as I noted, what about female bullying? What about the obscene break down of the family and rise of single-parent households? What about the destruction of black families and black on black crime?
These are issues that can be demonstrated and backed up with facts.
Or, given Gillette sells to men, the real travesty of the treatment of men in family courts over custody battles and alimony?
That's real.
Or the fact men live less than women because we work harder and longer, taking greater risks and go to war on a far greater percentage than women? Men reach stress levels that literally kill them.
And the vast majority of us do it with respect and pride. We're not out there looking to fucking rape women. The vast majority aim to raise our kids properly and with dignity.
But there's no currency in any of this. A corporation isn't gonna win friends with those things. You can't, after all, win friends with salad.
When I listen to marketing men and 'woke' CEO's, I'm reminded why I'm glad I'm not in the corporate world. Some of the most facile and easily manipulated to social trends I met were in corporate board rooms. But hey, the CEO gets to fly around the world so he or she (or it) knows, right?
Yeah. No.
The truth is, corporations have little to lose in engaging in this. Take Nike with the Kaepernick campaign. It makes no difference to them Kap's assertions could be refuted, that they genuinely upset good people, that he were socks depicting cops as pigs or that he wore a Castro t-shirt. Or that he hangs out with despicable (anti-semites) individuals like Linda Sarsour.
Who cares about those things?
What matters is the hair, the fist pumping and that he (willingly) chose to end his career and then tried to make it look like racism was at play when he couldn't get a job. Maybe there was collusion I don't know but he's the author of a lot of what transpired. Image is greater than truth.
What matters is the zeitgeist and how corporations can capitalize on it. Let's call it 'virtue-coin'.
It's a calculated hedge and it's a smart play strictly speaking. Nike is willing to lose on Kap because they cam make it up elsewhere. They're too established to lose everything over one bad campaign. They know what they're doing and probably discounted any potential backlash into their actuarial assessments. Companies - small or big - do this sort of thing all the time. That is, make decisions independent of their bottom financial lines.
Just this week my niece asked me for a job. Although my business at the moment is in a precarious situation financially, I hired her (part-time for now) because she's family and that she should learn what it's like to run a business. If anything, it can help to inoculate her from divisive idiots like Tlaib, Sanders, Warren and Ocasio-Corrrrrtez and their anti-business screeds.
Same with Starbucks. Although, they're really getting stupid about it and makes one wonder what is going through their minds giving out needles in bathrooms. For now, this idiocy is restricted to the United States. My daughter goes to Starbucks because it's right next to her school but you bet you damn ass I'm watching them.
Her well-being is my concern and couldn't care less about their need to virtue signal on my time and at the risk of potentially hurting her.
Starbucks, incidentally, is off my list of places to go to. It's just too much.
Same goes for companies taking a laughable stance against Trump.
Just do your damn jobs and spare us the lectures.
And now Gillette has thrown its hat into the ring. Soon it'll blow over. What will come of it who knows?
I fully expect companies to continue to be 'activists' for the next little while.
But.
I reckon one day, the people studying our time are going to look back on this period as an embarrassment.
Not that the people who pimp this stuff - they truly see themselves as sparking progress - will ever admit it.
Alas, history will record the names. It'll be written in the wind.
****
Food for thought:
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