#also is it not black people / black twitter that first coined the term woke and now it’s mutated off into.... what ever the hell this is

[cyberthot666]

this is wild

[phoenixlionme]

If you disagree with me, fine. But do not insult me in any shape or form. You want your opinions respected, then respect mine.

I wanted to give my personal two cents on both sides of the argument regarding the whole "woke" media. Personally, I feel both sides take it too far. And below I will give my reasons. But first I want to educate that the term "woke" was coined by the Black community to have other people in said community be aware of social injustices; it was supposed to be about vigilance. And somehow it got turned into an insult (mainly by the more conservative groups, even politicians), with many not being able to define it and thinking it's the end of all humanity. Look, humans have more important and urgent things to deal with than stupid culture wars and it be nice if said politicians got that but they don't. And that's the end of that, now I will begin my thoughts.

Anti: Just because something has diversity in it doesn't mean it's "woke". And (like I stated in the above paragraph) I don't think you can even honestly define it. Most people in these groups take things out of context in some moments to make your point. And I strongly believe that it's just performative outrage meant to get clicks so you can get money. You get bent out of shape if you see very brief political stuff (i.e., BLM) if that said stuff is opposite to your liking. You claim not to be bigoted but your content is mainly dragging down or outage porn over women, minorities, and the LGBT. You call the other side sensitive but look at your actions. Not to mention, you cherrypick any shows/movies that did fail with this "woke" content in order to provide "evidence". Getting some type of sick glee at watching it fail. You make some valid critiques over the problems with race bending and gender swapping but proceed to attack the creators and actors for essentially a fictional piece of work. Also, quit being an asshole to someone who genuinely states how seeing someone on screen who looks like them made them feel seen; it's not about them saying they relate to someone only because of surface level feature. It's about seeing someone who is like them in some way (race, sexuality, gender, etc.) who isn't made into a joke, criminal, sacrificial lamb, or diversity checklist. They are happy to see someone who looks like them in a role that they often don't see them in, and are written with respect and nuance. You don't get it, fine but don't be an asshole.

Pro: Diversity can't be the ONLY reason to watch a show and/or movie. There has to be good storytelling, characterization, plot, pacing, etc. to draw the audience in. Also, raceswaps and genderbends are (in my opinion) not great diversity examples. While I won't mind a few selections it's mainly for the former and still very limited. People of underrepresented groups should get original stories. And while it's okay to discuss social injustices in the work, you gotta do your research on it and not just hearsay from Twitter. You have to be careful and thorough thought into these moments and let it happen organically. And bragging to audiences about how inclusive you are makes you look performative especially when you start canceling actual good shows with great diversity. Also if you want to empower certain groups then given them actual stories from a variety of genres where they are fleshed out and given a personality. If they just show up mention their sexuality, race, and/or gender in some way with nothing else about them as a character it comes across as pandering.

Middle: Diversity and good stories EXIST. The Owl House, Arcane, Carmen Sandiego 2019, The Old Guard, Disney's original Mulan, Black Panther, ATLA/TLOK, Never Have I Ever,Everything Everywhere All At Once, Power Rangers, Steven Universe, The Dragon Prince, Star Trek, Harley Quinn TV series, Into the Spiderverse, Craig of the Creek, Dead End Paranormal Park, Brooklyn 99, Love Simon/Love Victor, Amphibia, Captain Planet, Dreamwork's She-Ra, Fullmetal Alchemsist, Paper Girls, Moana, DuckTales 2017, etc. They aren't mutually exclusive.

To summarize: Good storytelling can have diverse casts, people from underrepresented groups should get original stories instead of rehashed movies/series, fans are free to critique artwork and can offer valid criticisms but there are some "fans" who will behind the term "woke" to hide how they genuinely don't like a story simply because of their own bigotry (and might be profiting off of outrage porn). Everyone's entitled to their opinion but no entitled to be bullying, mean-spirited assholes.

[keiyokoi]

Reflection “Essay” #2

Hey everyone! I just wanted to take some time this week and talk about something that I think is extremely important, so buckle up, because this piece is kind of long.

Activism is something we encounter in our everyday lives, whether it be in social media, the news, or something ordinary like laptop stickers.  Most recently, Black Lives Matter was under the spotlight (as it should) in the wake of America’s track record of police brutality and George Floyd’s death.  Unfortunately, the movement that was fueled by public outcry and outstanding shows of allyship in the early summer months has largely vanished.  

The voices of many celebrities and influencers on platforms Instagram and Twitter have gone silent, moving on as the news turned away from BLM protests despite the thousands of people that continued to rally around the country and the world.  As we wrap up election season and move into December, what the US is focused on now is the soon-to-be former POTUS and other political news.  (My point is that the world of media has largely deemed BLM “no longer relevant” despite the ongoing struggle BIPOC folxs continue to face even after thousands of protests nation AND worldwide.)

To all the people who posted black squares with the hashtags #BlackoutTuesday and #BlackLivesMatter, where are you now?  Where is the support, the public outcry that had been so loud in June?  Why do civil rights only matter when they’re relevant in the media, when you can score easy clout from it?  

I’m sure most of them had their hearts in the right place, but the fact remains true that they fell victim to ‘ally theater’, a term that Anderson and Accomando credit Princess Harmony Rodrigez for coining.  The two authors go on to say, “The concern here is about activists who focus on performing an identity for an audience of disadvantaged folk rather than doing the hard and often unseen work of social change.” (P 713) and “To get out of the surface-level ally theater loop, white people need to challenge other whites about racism—even when no one else is watching.” (P 714) in their article The Pitfalls of Ally Performance.  

That’s where many people fail the first step of being an ally; they mistakenly believe that for a month of sparse posts concerning awareness, they gain the privilege of being an ally.  They forget that allyship is a title that needs to be earned.  It’s not enough to play activist for a month and then move on with your life—to be an ally, you must continue to be an activist, even if that’s something as simple as shopping at BIPOC small-owned businesses instead of Amazon.  (Here’s a little help for those of you who don’t know where to start: 42 Black-owned beauty brands to shop at instead of Sephora, and 108 Black-owned businesses you can check out.)  You have to acknowledge the hard work of POC the exact same way you praise white celebrities and influencers for being ‘woke’.  A fantastic example is Harry Styles.  

For the 2019 Met Gala, Styles showed up to the red carpet in heels and a sheer black Gucci blouse.  This made fans go nuts; they praised him for being a camp icon but glossed over equally stunning outfits like Billy Porter’s golden, winged ensemble (who was carried in on a litter!!! by SIX MEN!!!) or Lena Waithe’s suit.  This year fans ran to social media again, this time to gush over the photo spread of him in a dress, thanking Styles for ending toxic masculinity (yes this was a Tweet I read with my own two eyes), congratulating him on defying gender norms, and completely forgetting about others who did it before him.  

Male and AMAB (assigned male at birth) non-binary stars like Billy Porter, Jared Leto, Ezra Miller, and JVN are only a handful who’ve appeared in public in dresses and/or skirts before, making it unfair for people to heap gratuitous praise onto Styles’s photoshoot.  I’m not trying to bash him or anything and I think that cover was gorgeous, but you can’t be an ally while you idolize Harry Styles for wearing a dress but ignore POC/queer folx who did too.

Now, the second topic I wanted to address: a second helping of fake allyship, this time in the corporate realm.  

I love June, but it’s also a mentally exhausting month queer individuals who are sick and tired of fake allyship.  Cisgenderists crawl out of the woodwork to whine about ‘straight pride’ as if they don’t have enough of it, influencers capitalize on Pride’s popularity to promote their brand, and large corporations break out the rainbow merch to make a pretty penny off the same people marginalize the other eleven months of the year.  

June is for people like me to celebrate our identities together, whether it be at a public Pride event or in the privacy of our own homes.  It is not for big businesses to slap rainbows on their merchandise and boast false claims of LGBTQ+ support when corporations like Walmart and Starbucks have done nothing at all to support the message or the mission of Pride.  

Building an Abolitionist and Trans Queer Movement With Everything We’ve Got by Bassichis, Lee, and Spade writes “transgender and gender-non-conforming people are repeatedly abandoned and marginalized in the agendas and priorities of our “lead” organizations” (P743) and I couldn’t agree more.  The fact of the matter is that under this capitalist regime, queer individuals are just another tool for the privledged elite to take advantage of.

Mega corporations claim to be on our side for a month, playing at queer allyship with rainbow beer cans and happy ads that feature more rainbows and scripted proclamations of LGBTQ+ support, but disappear just as quickly come July.  

Certain celebrities tweet during Pride, garnering the applause of the public and cause people across social media to ‘stan’ celebrities that post “Happy Pride!” just for the shallow allyship it grants them.  And it’s so normalized for public figures to post all month long about Pride, and suddenly stop in July that we don’t question it.

Donald Trump occasionally preaches about his support of the queer community (which we all know is a joke) and how he’s “the first president to openly support the LGBT community” despite the fact that he gutted LGBTQ+ legislation and his terrible track record concerning queer folx.  If he really was a queer ally then why, as Bassichis, Lee, and Spade say, is there “ no inheritance, no health benefits from employers, no legal immigration status, and no state protection of our relationship to our children.”?  

That’s why I want to put the spotlight on a game called The Last of Us: Part II.  It’s a post-apocalyptic survival horror game so it’s the last place you’d expect to find LGBTQ+ representation, but the main character is a lesbian who has a (Jewish) girlfriend and has an Asian (not white!!) transman, along with another character I strongly believe is aromantic and/or asexual.  Their character arcs tie into the story well despite many fans calling out the game developers for pandering to the queer community, and the exhilaration I felt when I saw myself (mostly) represented in a character (who was voiced by an Asian transman!) is unparalleled.   

They didn’t have to include any LGBTQ+ content or accurate representation, could have left the main character’s sexuality presumably heterosexual, but they went where most bestselling games don’t, because they’re genuine allies.  They brought in voice actors who were Black, Asian, and Latinx to voice characters who were Black, Asian, and Latinx.  

That’s what we need more of, not trendsetting celebrities and people who say trans rights just to feel better about themselves.  

[mikemortgage]

Gillette ad takes on ‘toxic masculinity’ in #MeToo-era rebrand

For three decades, Gillette promised its customers “The Best a Man Can Get.”

An individual. Acquisitive. Assertive. And always clean-shaven.

This was the vision of masculinity depicted in an ad campaign that debuted in January 1989 during Super Bowl XXIII. The early days of the George H.W. Bush administration and the end stage of the Cold War, it was the year of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Promoting Gillette’s top-of-the-line Atra razor, the 60-second spot portrayed variations on a single theme: a white man scoring, whether at the office, on an athletic field or with a woman. The one specific location it invoked was Wall Street, the arena of the ultimate alpha male.

Now, Procter & Gamble, the maker of Gillette, is out with a new ad, “We Believe,” that challenges the image of masculinity it once promoted. The consumer goods company, whose net sales totalled US$66.8 billion last year, has ignited a debate about gender and cultural branding, as well as about the power exercised by multinational corporations in shaping evolving ideas about family and relationships in the #MeToo era.

Politics, culture and engagement are on the minds of corporate directors in 2019

Men on Wall Street are so spooked by the #MeToo movement they’re avoiding women at all costs

#MeToo’s most potent enemy: higher awards for harassment victims in the workplace

“Bullying. The #MeToo movement. Toxic masculinity.” The headlines resound as men — black and white, young and old — peer at themselves in the mirror. “Is this the best a man can get?” asks the narrator of the ad, released Sunday on YouTube and shared Monday on Twitter. The scenes that unfold suggest that the answer is no, and point to a new mantra: “The Best Men Can Be.”

The new Gillette men are a community, concerned more about who they are than about what they can acquire.

But some men want out of that community. Piers Morgan, the TV presenter, blasted the ad, writing, “This absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity.”

The nearly two-minute spot, created by the New York-based advertising agency Grey and directed by Kim Gehrig of Britain-based production agency Somesuch, represents the latest corporate foray into the culture wars. Last year, Nike stock soared after it unveiled a September advertising campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL star whose protest of police violence drew the ire of conservatives who decried his decision to kneel during the national anthem.

Just as the decision by the footwear and apparel company led Kaepernick’s critics to burn their Nike gear, the approach by Procter & Gamble incensed many viewers, but none more so than men’s rights activists who vowed to “#BoycottGillette.” Christina Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who coined the term “victim feminism,” blamed a familiar boogeyman: the campus left.

The ad was called “hideously woke.” Some found it “smarmy” and “condescending.” By early Tuesday, the video had about 223,000 downvotes on YouTube, compared with about 25,000 favourable reactions. On Twitter, the video had drawn about 70,000 likes and 19,000 comments by early Tuesday.

Meanwhile, even some who praised the company’s intentions warned that the ad unwittingly reinforced the idea that bad behaviour is normal because all men take part in it.

The fierce reactions may bode well for the success of the message, said Robert Kozinets, a scholar of marketing and consumer culture at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

“Advertisers, when they’re lucky and smart, are able to tap into something that’s part of the popular consciousness,” Kozinets said in an interview with The Washington Post. Procter & Gamble is hitching its wagon to the #MeToo movement, he said, and rebranding to fit a “moral narrative with a lot of energy behind it.”

The video was accompanied by a pledge to donate US$1 million per year for the next three years to a nonprofit working in the United States to help men “achieve their personal ‘best,’ ” according to a news release from Gillette. Its original slogan, the company said, was aspirational. “But turn on the news today and it’s easy to believe that men are not at their best,” the release noted. The first recipient of the funds will be the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, according to Adweek.

While picking sides on a divisive issue could be seen as a threat to the company’s bottom line, Kozinets said, most advertising is a quest not to be forgotten, which means even negative feedback can be productive.

And while some might object to a profit-minded company acting as an arbiter of moral conduct, there are few other forums to debate these issues, he said. When it comes to inspiring the public to consider hot-button issues, Kozinets observed, “politicians are clearly not rising to the challenge. But corporations are.”

One example is Heineken’s 2017 Worlds Apart campaign, which aimed to bring people with radically different worldviews together over a cold one. But advertising has missed the mark by trying to swim in the direction of political currents as well. Also in 2017, Pepsi pulled an ad with Kendall Jenner that was blasted for co-opting protest movements.

The message of the Gillette ad is hardly subtle in identifying a crisis of masculinity. Young boys bully, chasing each other or taunting “Freak” in cyberspace. Adult men harass and demean. They leer at women at parties and on street corners. “What I actually think she’s trying to say,” a corporate executive cuts in, putting his hand on the shoulder of the lone woman at a boardroom table as he silences her.

Interspersed with these scenes are images from popular culture — reality TV, music videos, cartoons — that appear to normalize bad behaviour, justified by the mantra “Boys will be boys.”

“But something finally changed,” the narrator intones, as #MeToo revelations flash on the screen. “And there will be no going back. Because we — we believe in the best in men.”

The remaining scenes feature men policing each other’s behaviour or uplifting women. “I am strong,” a father tells his young daughter. The message imparted to two brawling boys is, “That’s not how we treat each other, okay?” These lessons matter, the ad concludes, “because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.”

Representations of masculinity have long been fertile ground for advertising, stretching at least as far back as the Marlboro Man, a figure of a rugged cowboy who first appeared in 1954 to popularize filtered cigarettes, which had been perceived as feminine.

More recently, the “Old Spice Guy,” which advertised another Procter & Gamble product, reflected new expectations that men be “both sex symbols and good domestic partners,” Kozinets said. He noted that the campaign, which launched in 2010, took a more lighthearted approach to masculine aspirations, in line with the image projected by President Barack Obama.

Men have hardly been the sole targets of advertising that seeks to bend cultural expectations.

The 2004 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty aimed to convince women that there were many ways to be beautiful. But mainly, it helped sell soap. In the year after the campaign launched, the company’s total sales rose about 6 per cent to US$500 million.

The Washington Post

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