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defrogYou know the one I mean – the Super Bowl TV ad where people sang “America The Beautiful” in languages other than English, causing certain people of a particular political persuasion to lose their shit?
Yeah, that one.
Obviously I think the whole thing is just stoopid – partly for reasons John Scalzi has covered particularly well, and partly because no one – not even jingoistic dingbats – should be surprised that Coke is invoking the idea of racial harmony and other Communist concepts as an ad hook. I mean, it’s not like they’ve never done this before in an iconic way or anything.
But then we live in an age of revisionist/alternative history where yr preconceived beliefs can always be instantly reinforced, so it’s not like past history actually means anything anymore.
That said, I do think it’s easy to focus indignant outrage on a particular group of ignorant dingbats and say, “That’s how bad it is in America right now.” Which would be true if these people represented any kind of mainstream.
I’m not that convinced that they are. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part. But look, when yr benchmark is “Of the dumb-ass extremist bigots we cherrypicked off Twitter, 100% expressed dumb-ass extremist bigoted opinions,” it’s a little hard for me to get that worked up over it.
Okay, sure, you can point to the conservative talk radio people going off on the ad. But of all the names I've seen mentioned, only a couple of them pull ratings of over 1 million listeners a week, and even if we take the top audience numbers as gospel, yr still talking about maybe 20 million people max.
That’s a big number – especially if yr an advertiser. But compared to the US population, it’s insignificant – less than 5%.
Don't get me wrong – it’s worth knowing such people exist, and it highlights how far we have to go on the whole race/tolerance thing, and that’s worth highlighting because there are far too many politicians and media pundits keen to milk that fear card for everything it’s worth and convince the rest of us that they’re the true voice of America.
But it’s also always worth remembering that these people don’t represent nearly as much of the country as they like to think. So I don’t see the point in investing too much emotional energy into stuff like this.
Besides, you have Glenn Beck complaining that Coke is trying to be divisive after he admitted not two weeks ago that he’s built his career doing exactly that (so he ought to know!). So it’s not like I can take any of this too seriously.
That’s the song I sing,
This is dF
Yeah, that one.
Obviously I think the whole thing is just stoopid – partly for reasons John Scalzi has covered particularly well, and partly because no one – not even jingoistic dingbats – should be surprised that Coke is invoking the idea of racial harmony and other Communist concepts as an ad hook. I mean, it’s not like they’ve never done this before in an iconic way or anything.
But then we live in an age of revisionist/alternative history where yr preconceived beliefs can always be instantly reinforced, so it’s not like past history actually means anything anymore.
That said, I do think it’s easy to focus indignant outrage on a particular group of ignorant dingbats and say, “That’s how bad it is in America right now.” Which would be true if these people represented any kind of mainstream.
I’m not that convinced that they are. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part. But look, when yr benchmark is “Of the dumb-ass extremist bigots we cherrypicked off Twitter, 100% expressed dumb-ass extremist bigoted opinions,” it’s a little hard for me to get that worked up over it.
Okay, sure, you can point to the conservative talk radio people going off on the ad. But of all the names I've seen mentioned, only a couple of them pull ratings of over 1 million listeners a week, and even if we take the top audience numbers as gospel, yr still talking about maybe 20 million people max.
That’s a big number – especially if yr an advertiser. But compared to the US population, it’s insignificant – less than 5%.
Don't get me wrong – it’s worth knowing such people exist, and it highlights how far we have to go on the whole race/tolerance thing, and that’s worth highlighting because there are far too many politicians and media pundits keen to milk that fear card for everything it’s worth and convince the rest of us that they’re the true voice of America.
But it’s also always worth remembering that these people don’t represent nearly as much of the country as they like to think. So I don’t see the point in investing too much emotional energy into stuff like this.
Besides, you have Glenn Beck complaining that Coke is trying to be divisive after he admitted not two weeks ago that he’s built his career doing exactly that (so he ought to know!). So it’s not like I can take any of this too seriously.
That’s the song I sing,
This is dF
