Weigh In: #Me Too!!! And continuing the conversation on political correctness

[misteraven]

Current topic... #Me Too!!! And continuing the conversation on political correctness

 

For those not familiar with these weigh in topics, definitely search "Weigh In" for some other good ones, like the Social Media discussion and the political correctness vs Teen Violence discussion. I think the last one was Weigh In: Politics vs Pop Culture where we discussed Supreme NYC jumping in on politics. There was also related topics like Nike and Kaepernick = Freedom of speech? and especially Has political correctness amplified teenage violence?, so I encourage you guys to jump in on those as well if you have a point of view on the subject. Guess this one sort of continue the subject.

 

I'm admittedly late to the game since I've all but abandoned personal use of Social Media and generally have strayed away from political conversations to focus on my own situation and devoting my time and energy towards the things I believe I can actually affect, but after so many references to Gillette, mostly in the form of memes, I decided to Google the subject and see what was causing the stir.

 

Once again we see a large brand attempt to step into the cultural conversation. As stated in other threads and comments, at best I find it massively disingenuous each time a big company / celebrity / [insert high profile pronoun here], attempts to do this and at worst, find it arrogant as fuck that they'd use a captive audience and / or massive communication platform and high profile position to try and preach a particular very personal point of view or belief. It's been done often enough at this point that you don't need to be a savvy marketing insider to clearly see the formula of "go to market with a product or message that anchors a position in an emotionally fueled, decisive cultural conversation and wait for the mainstream and social media circles to go viral with it" (after all, all press is good press made exponentially better when you aren't paying big budgets to churn it out and sustain it). But hey, the formula still works, so fuck it... am I right? In fact, I'd argue that in the hyper polarized era we find ourselves living in, it's actually an effective strategy that seems to be evolving to become even more effective, rather than quickly being copy-catted and payed out.

 

I've sort of kicked off this Weigh In series with the goal of simply encouraging intelligent discussion and debate, to learn other points of view and hopefully, compel others to open up and engage by both digging deeper into the subjects and participating in the conversation, but admittedly, I'm having a tough time not taking a clear position with many of these subjects.

 

I don't think any good will come from the sustained efforts to polarize subjects and people and so much of this seems to really be about doing so. I don't believe that these companies are that altruistic as to not have an agenda that is ultimately driven by more profit when these campaigns as we've seen how occasionally public apologies get issued when things backfire or ignore the fact that most of the time, it just leads to increased brand equity from being the loudest voice in the echo chamber or more profit, cause there's a lot of market share in bandwagons that are about 50% of the population and lots of profit if you can take the reigns of that bandwagon if even for a little while. But hey, #metoo!

 

No longer just a war strategy and now even beyond a political strategy, we now see Divide and Rule become the demand creation strategy du jour!

 

Quote

Divide and rule (from Latin dīvide et imperā), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. The concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures, and especially prevents smaller power groups from linking up, causing rivalries and fomenting discord among the people. It was heavily used by British Empire in India and elsewhere. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule

Now I open the floor to discussion.

 

Here's the video:

 

 

[Kults]

Wheres the vid about Feminine Toxicity though ? What a joke.

Only men can be toxic ??

 

The brilliant marketing exec that thought it was a good idea to insult 90% of gillettes customer base is the same one behind that feminist Audi ad during last years Super Bowl.. Shocker. Gillette’s parent company is Proctor and Gamble, who hires all kinds of third parties to farm oils for their products using child labor, bordering on slavery. Yet they feel they have the moral high ground to tell the rest of us to.. “be better”..? 

 

Please. 

Edited January 18, 2019 by Kults

[where]

I agree with the fact these companies are doing this to leverage huge ad campaigns for relatively low costs, generating massive exposure over night. I do think this, if even on a subconscious level immune to polling, plays an affect role on the consumer. It talks about the gender narratives in our society, which are real, the ad is mad clunky but i fucks with it they did a good job. Its interesting to me because its openly addressing the zeitgeist. No matter what, there will always be at least 49% of people that have a issue with fuck all. Shit now Im speculating on the motives of the media and a razor company, which is hq right down the street, what have we all become. Good weigh in.

[morton]

I do not think it will have the same impact as this work from nearly 50 years ago speaking to another cultural awareness and desire for equity.

 

 

[glorydays]

its like stand up comics today

 

"clapter" is what its called...where you say something in line with whatever the "IT" agenda is today and instead of it being funny, people clap with agreement

 

this some old bullshit

[Mercer]

My first thoughts were, this seemed like a bad move on their part considering it's a mens brand. So att the very least, there has to be a small percentage of rapists, professional sexual harassers, and wife beaters who may take offense at this attack on their lifestyle exposing them to revenue loss. Jokes aside, there's an even more significant number of non-raping, otherwise well behaved customers that may also choose to grow beards now, or switch brands,  I'll return to that later.

 

From a marketing perspective, I assume the powers that be in Gillet concluded this commercial would drive increased brand loyalty to a broader audience. As far as brand strategy goes, this is clearly a gamble. On one hand It's already accomplished mass exposure to a very broad audience, for a fraction of what it would cost if they paid for this level of publicity. I mean who's actually seen this commercial outside of the discussions like this, sparked by going viral from it's controversy. For the most part though, I assume the majority of their customer base will identify with the virtues signaled here, and are in agreement with the social narrative this dog whistle portrays. 

 

With that said, because this is tied to social politics some will choose to be offended by this. The reason I use the word "choose"' is they're probably not engaging in any other "male toxicity" themselves, so the commercial doesn't attack them directly. Yet some will consider this commercial an attack against them based on the obvious progressive dog whistles.  It's PC enough to not blatantly paint men as a group in a bad light just for being men.

 

The commercial never  made a single controversial statement within it's context, but:

 

• What if it only focused in the exact same way on minority men

• What if there was a maxi pad commercial that pointed out the societal ills women tend to commit more.

 

There would be instant negative backlash, so I get the obvious hypocrisy, and logical inconsistency involved here. Criticisms are aimed at a group of people which happens to be men, and yet somehow this is acceptable to people who normally champion the virtues of being politically correct. That's an idea worth examining, but to me, being triggered by this commercial is misguided, and an example of social conservitives trending towards the same unproductive tactics used (somewhat successfully) by progressives.

 

With that said, I personally lean towards building, and maintaining a free society where groups of people like entire genders, religious groups, or nationalities can be criticized, and examined openly. We don't need  one set of rules for one group, and  a separate set of rules for the other. One of the reasons I laugh so hard at the  N-word pass memes, it's hilarious because it explores this idea . This over zealous  enforcement of politically correct speech  is incompatible with a free society IMO.

 

I'm not impressed by people who get instantly offended by beliefs outside of their narrative. The right adopting that "I'm offended" tactic to fight fire with fire is almost like a hypocrisy to the 2nd power, ironically being used in some cases to point out the original hypocrisy. I just don't think it leads to any productive discussion. Sure, technically it's against their own rules to single out a group for criticism, and so on, but that doesn't offend me personally. I feel no one is above criticism, and in a truly free society we should be free to express ideas that might be offensive to others.

[where]

4 minutes ago, Mercer said:

 

• What if there was a maxi pad commercial that pointed out the societal ills women tend to commit more.

Yea you never see tampon ads where they act like cranky bitches 

[Mercer]

 

1 minute ago, where said:

Yea you never see tampon ads where they act like cranky bitches 

Now I'm offended.

 

 

[where]

13 minutes ago, Mercer said:

 

Now I'm offended.

the song of my people 

[misteraven]

1 hour ago, Mercer said:

My first thoughts were, this seemed like a bad move on their part considering it's a mens brand. So att the very least, there has to be a small percentage of rapists, professional sexual harassers, and wife beaters who may take offense at this attack on their lifestyle exposing them to revenue loss. Jokes aside, there's an even more significant number of non-raping, otherwise well behaved customers that may also choose to grow beards now, or switch brands,  I'll return to that later.

Going to shed a little light, that opens the irony in this, while also fitting in the non-politically correct "offensive" corner.

 

This isn't a gamble and the reason why is think of who actually gets up and shaves (in terms of a majority)... Clean cut dudes, likely older and probably in a stable economic situation. Taking that train of thought further, probably married, likely with kids. Continuing this train of thought... Who do you suppose is doing the shopping and picking up dudes razors...

 

LOL!

 

I will bet the house the execs at Gillette and the agency that conceptualized this, were looking at data points on not necessarily just who's using the razors, but also who's actually buying them. And all that said, who wants to hazard a guess that the numbers point to women being the largest actual buyers of those razors, whether its the silver and black Mens version or the pink and white Womens version.

[Kults]

Progressive women don’t shop for their men, they’re way too independent for that .. lol

[where]

47 minutes ago, misteraven said:

This isn't a gamble

No its a 

 

[where]

Average industrywide US unit price of shaving products declined 4.5% last year to $6.14, the lowest price in at least five years.

 

This is a company that has cut tens of thousands of jobs in the past 20 years.

 

Also to build on what Raven said, I would bet that most of their target consumers are past the age of switching razor companies, brand loyalty and all.

[One Man Banned]

3 hours ago, where said:

Yea you never see tampon ads where they act like cranky bitches 

Yeah- they always smiling and doing high kicks

[glorydays]

1 hour ago, misteraven said:

I will bet the house the execs at Gillette and the agency that conceptualized this, were looking at data points on not necessarily just who's using the razors, but also who's actually buying them. And all that said, who wants to hazard a guess that the numbers point to women being the largest actual buyers of those razors, whether its the silver and black Mens version or the pink and white Womens version.

I concur with this, doctor....They're targeting buyers, not users. And the minutiae of the commercial itself shows that they were going after married men with a stable family 

[One Man Banned]

42 minutes ago, where said:

Average industrywide US unit price of shaving products declined 4.5% last year to $6.14, the lowest price in at least five years.

 

This is a company that has cut tens of thousands of jobs in the past 20 years.

 

Also to build on what Raven said, I would bet that most of their target consumers are past the age of switching razor companies, brand loyalty and all.

 

 

Now here's a smart fucking man right here who cut to the heart.  Beyond the first 2 lines, this company also had the patent expire on their whole line not far back, allowing anyone else to make essentially the same razor cartridge that fits Gilletes razors but sell it for less.  Before, Gillette could charge what they want and had a big hold on the overal market.  In the end I'd gamble that most men could give a fuck what brand razor they use so long as it does its job.  To that end, Gillette made a (potentially) brilliant marketing play that in the least just put their name ahead of everyone else.  They might also have plans to expand or promote more womens products.  Sheesh, and you guys thought this big corp gives a shit about people.

[Fist 666]

I try not to participate in these as I always end up saying inflammatory things and then never come back...

 

But, anyone on this forum who thinks we couldn't /shouldn't be better should stroll over to the smash/trash thread and see what kinda fucking animals we all are.

 

 

[morton]

The metoo thing is almost too much to get into here, and without a woman the conversation is lacking a crucial point of view. 

 

On the video itself, I do not see anything all that controversial. The one part I took issue with was stopping the young man from engaging with the young woman on the street, without establishing what his approach was, I wan't to live in a world where talking to people on the street is okay, and I have started initiated long term relationships that were positive and respectful on the street. 

 

It is like the reverse dog whistle, if this shit is getting you riled there may be a problem.

 

As to good marketing, when I was in middle school and they gave us the nuts dropping talk they gave us a box of products, trojan condoms, Gillette razor and shave cream, and old spice deodorant. In the decades that have followed I have been rolling with Gillette from the sensor to the sensor excel and now to whatever they call the multi blade contraption. Which has a single blade in the opposite direction in case you did not know.

 

 

  

 

I think a conversation about marketing of social messages along with corporate hypocrisy may be more our pace.  

 

 

[misteraven]

6 hours ago, Fist 666 said:

I try not to participate in these as I always end up saying inflammatory things and then never come back...

 

But, anyone on this forum who thinks we couldn't /shouldn't be better should stroll over to the smash/trash thread and see what kinda fucking animals we all are.

 

 

I can certainly respect this point of view and don’t doubt that there are toxic elements as well as toxic consequences to men, women and whatever fits between the two. But I also believe in biology and the human condition. I don’t think we’re going to pretend our way out of the DNA and evolutionary predisposition towards males being inherently competitive and aggressive, nor females being inherently nurturing. Of course, there are exceptions and outliers and no doubt as an intelligent and self aware species we can always strive for better, but personally, my belief is that most of this is hypocritical and just a facad for a deeper agenda. 

 

I think ultimately what we’re doing here is encouraging a general segment of the population to suppress a natural tendency, ironically largely driven by another segment of the population that celebrates not suppressing outlier tendencies. In the end it’s going to result in more harm than good. 

 

For the record, and you guys have heard me say this repeatedly... I’m a staunch advocate of individual freedom and personal liberty, which also comes with personal responsibility and accountability. Meaning that once you reach a point of maturity, go ahead and live your life however you see fit, so long as it doesn’t encroach on the freedom and independence of others. I believe we’re granted the right to pursue happiness but not actually guaranteed that happiness, which seems to be the area that confuses some people. Anyhow, yeah... I do believe boys will be boys. That’s not the same as saying, it’s okay to be a bully or to conduct yourself in a way that threatens another person, male or female. But certainly don’t subscribe to this #metoo stuff nor all this hyper sensitivity or movement to suppress natural tendencies that are literally driven by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and literally imprinted in our DNA. In any case, that’s just my own opinion, but the actual topic is whether we’re cool with Gillette or other consumer products based corporations to be leading or steering these types of conversations. 

[Kults]

^ Nailed it. 

[Mercer]

17 hours ago, misteraven said:

Going to shed a little light, that opens the irony in this, while also fitting in the non-politically correct "offensive" corner.

 

This isn't a gamble and the reason why is think of who actually gets up and shaves (in terms of a majority)... Clean cut dudes, likely older and probably in a stable economic situation. Taking that train of thought further, probably married, likely with kids. Continuing this train of thought... Who do you suppose is doing the shopping and picking up dudes razors...

 

LOL!

 

I will bet the house the execs at Gillette and the agency that conceptualized this, were looking at data points on not necessarily just who's using the razors, but also who's actually buying them. And all that said, who wants to hazard a guess that the numbers point to women being the largest actual buyers of those razors, whether its the silver and black Mens version or the pink and white Womens version.

Granted,  women hit the grocery store more than men, but making brand decision is an entirely different story. Not to go full Archie bunker here, but if Edith ever brought home those shit single use Bic razors like this shit is jail, I'd probably just go buy some Mach 3's myself,  or send my meathead son in law.

 

With shaving products, I'm guessing brand loyalty is so strong most men never switch it up after 16 to 21 years old after finding something that works. This means just like cigarettes,  you gotta hook em young. Trying to make them switch later is much less cost effective, or even possible. Men this age usually aren't married, and nothing embodies youthful optimism more than supporting progressive social issues.

 

TLDR:

The board overseeing marketing at Gillette finished shaving each others balls one day and saw a Nike ad.

[Kults]

I think that was true a few generations ago, not anymore. 

[morton]

 

[where]

15 hours ago, Fist 666 said:

I try not to participate in these as I always end up saying inflammatory things and then never come back...

 

 

 

 

Same, Im "trying" to not do that.

Edited January 20, 2019 by where

[Kults]

New news, the original version of the add had a black rapper participating in the "Toxic Masculinity"..

 

that part was pulled..hmm wonder why?? Pssssh everyone knows only straight white guys can be toxic

 

 

Edited January 20, 2019 by Kults

[One Man Banned]

Probably what interests me most about this at this point is that when an individual or a company takes a stand on an issue these days it exposes them to criticim about their own internal policies and such on said issue (as well as their history).  In Gillette's case they're mainly focused on men, and if they are like most businesses they are likely male dominated, so have to wonder what the culture is like internally.  Was going to post this comment yesterday and this morning already saw someone doing an article on the above.

[Kults]

3 hours ago, One Man Banned said:

Probably what interests me most about this at this point is that when an individual or a company takes a stand on an issue these days it exposes them to criticim about their own internal policies and such on said issue (as well as their history).  In Gillette's case they're mainly focused on men, and if they are like most businesses they are likely male dominated, so have to wonder what the culture is like internally.  Was going to post this comment yesterday and this morning already saw someone doing an article on the above.

No idea about Gillette’s inner workings. Anecdotal at best but I work for a ‘progressive’ company, my insurance just went up because we have one dude on the payroll growin tits and taking estrogen on company insurances dime and one bulldike growing facial hair and taking testosterone treatments.. you guessed it; in company insurances dime. I’m sure the company will pay for their surgeries too. I’m left paying for that dementia. Oh and careful not to misgender them, you’ll get written up ???‍♂️

[Dirty_habiT]

How many of you straight males can see a woman wearing a t-shirt w/o a bra and not look right at her nipples?  Don't you fuckin lie either.

 

It's instinct and going against instinct is what's causing us to have trannies.  I was driving home a few moments ago and this nice black woman was walking w/o a bra on, her titties looked like they were trying to repel eachother like magnets, nipples pointing at the ground like ms. chokes on dick from south park.  You know, or you could have some discretion to not share your personal things with others.  I don't go around w/ my balls hanging out because it's not ok, or pants so tight you can see my dick because "it's comfortable to me."  It's a distraction from the goals of the public.

 

As long as I have a heart beat I'm going to do man shit.  Straight man shit.  I'll leave the being pussies for the millenials.

[glorydays]

I believe in actions and consequences. and I agree with @Dirty_habiT. the choices people make is up to them, but that doesn't mean others wont judge

 

if you make your bed, lie in it.

 

[Mercer]

I'm no longer using Gillette anywhere, and have stopped shaving my testicles entirely.