This ad speaks to me… it says… together…we’re gonna make a shit ton of money!!! Well, not really. But I imagine that’s what an ad would say to me, if I were the spokesperson looking out from it. Though I guess that’s not really correct, either. Once you’re in the ad, you got paid already. You did your job… it’s the people using ads to self-promote that are the ones crossing their fingers, they’re the ones with something to lose.
I get really tired of stupid people confusing 1st amendment rights with advertising revenue. Or even 1st Amendment rights with business decisions. They’re just not the same fucking thing, and you look like an idiot when you overlook that. You can say what the hell you want whenever wherever…unless you’re in someone’s employ, where something you said could affect the corporate brand. Money talks far louder than anyone’s concerns about your stupid opinions.
Here’s an easy example. You have the right to call someone a “nappy headed ho.” You don’t have the right to expect advertisers to want to pay for you to say it, if negative publicity about such a comment splashes over into their end of the pool. And more importantly, your employers have the right to define their own brand, too. They might look at the outcry and throw you under the bus because, short sided or not, it earns them goodwill/money. Or, most likely, they take the long sided route and “fire” you for 3-4 days, and hire you back when the angry mob got distracted by some other shiny object. It’s not about your 1st Amendment right anymore, it’s about their bottom dollar. Totally different things.
I have a friend that gets really pissed off when a celebrity is forced to apologize for something they said. For the most part, I completely agree with her: they’re not being paid or employed by someone that might have to do damage control over it, right? People should be allowed to hold onto whatever opinions they want, right?
But it’s not like someone put a gun to their heads to apologize, so… my sympathy only goes so far. Think about it. They don’t have to apologize. Fuck that. Whatshisface Kramer could have just forged right ahead with his n-word flinging fail, and been unapologetic about it. Who cares? He didn’t say anything illegal… You know who cares? He fucking cares. And this is why I’m not sympathetic to the celebrity that is “forced to apologize.” The dumbfuck realized that with the viral nature of the interwebz, his stand-up bomb wasn’t just a passing review by a bored critic… he got mad at the crowd, and the crowd fucking memorialized his failure for all time. Oooh, that stung a little, didn’t it Kramer? Is THAT why you apologized? Did that hurt the ol’ image… I mean pocketbook?
Fuck that, celebrities aren’t forced to say shit. They just realized that the number of people backing them and whatever dumb shit they said don’t equal enough fans for them to continue with the lifestyle they have grown so accustomed to expect. “I could just tell them to suck it up… or… I could try to win back over the public so that I can actually sell enough tickets to my next gig…” Because a celebrity is their own brand. They are their own advertiser and employer, and they are only too well aware that their marketability may have its limitations. Age, relevance, talent… these qualities are all pretty fleeting (if present at all) and may give out if the public turns on them. No one forced Oprah to apologize to the beef people, but in her branding wizardry, she found a way to turn the whole thing into some goodwill avalanche of actual cash right back into her empire.
The whole thing sways on public opinion. 20 years ago, there’d be some angry letter campaigns and phone calls, and that was the main way the public communicated their anger. Now? Fuck letters, who the fuck cares that you can still write in cursive… now it’s twitter, facebook, blogs, and comment sections on articles… people’s opinions are so much more visible… you couldn’t see that 20,000 had written letters, but HOLY FUCK IT’S NOW A TRENDING TOPIC ZOMG PAY ATTENTION! I think public opinion, with its power, visibility, and appetite, is pretty awesome. And not because I think mob mentality usually has something coherent or intelligent to say, I don’t – it’s usually a drooling, stupid flatulence of a sentiment that we could really do without. I like it because it’s this awkward phenomena of little people all realizing they can squawk about something and be get heard. Corporate entities have to have whole Public Relations departments prepared 24/7 to react… imagine that… you’re on call at any moment to respond to some rage campaign on twitter that has decided you support skinning baby kangaroos for a hobby, forcing you to do a bunch of positive ad campaigns with you shaking hands with a perfectly fuzzy baby kangaroo.
And just the same, that public outcry informs you about what kind of opinions are out there. The Million Moms, all 40,000 of them or so, has let us know how much they hate gaywear, and how they won’t shop at JC Penney now that they’ve endorsed that militant gay Ellen. And now, everyone else knows how they feel, and can form their own opinion about how they feel about the Million Moms. Well, at least about gay apparel, they don’t really tell you much else about themselves, other than they presumably would not make out with me at a party so I’m sort of over them. I’m curious to know how much support JCP received… because it was either such an overwhelming amount that they made the obvious choice of goodwill with the larger customer base, or, JC Penney decided they had the better of the two arguments and decided to stand by their guns in hopes society would grow up a little. Of course, there could be a third option; JC Penney is a little strapped for cash, and already paid Ellen the endorsement money…maybe they don’t have the cash to start from scratch so they figure they’ll take the hit, use the advertising campaign, and go with something more banal the next round, something with little baby kangaroos in jackets. I have my money on the first one, but you just never know. I know I’ve certainly used something illfitting or illsuited because I already paid money for it and couldn’t return it.
The downside of course, is the same upside. It’s a stupid angry mob. And like most stupid angry mobs, a group out there, somewhere, somehow, can and has figured out how easy it is to make an angry mob do their bidding. (Stand behind it, tap it on the shoulder so it turns that direction, shove.) Throw some political money at a small organization with a REALLY LOUD FUCKING WHINE and suddenly you can mimicry public outcry of millions with only a few thousands. That’s not a bunch of people voicing an opinion, that’s a political machine focusing those dumb little mob-cogs all together like a desperate Who-Ville cry to be heard. We are less informed about what the little individuals really want, and more informed about what their political organization of a brain needs them to think. But hey, no one's paying me to have an opinion, so what do I know.
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