While I think a boycott of Gillette is an excellent idea, there is something that should frighten Gillette’s management team even more. Their brand could become shorthand for SJW weenie. From Roger Kimball’s US Spectator article Trump’s burger fête was a masterpiece:
The president joked that he had thought about having the First and Second Ladies prepare salad, but he knew that the Clemson athletes did not use Gillette products (in about a month no man who is not an interior decorator will) and that they would prefer burgers to tofu and spouts.
It is too early to say if this will catch on, but I saw at least one internet commenter yesterday referring to “the kind of man who shaves with Gillette”. If this does catch on it won’t just lower Gillette sales for a quarter or two; it could very well damage the brand long term.
Edit: Something else I’ve seen making the rounds is ostensibly a Schick ad. It might be a real ad, but it strikes me as much more likely a clever meme. Either way, notice that both men in the “ad” have beards (one partial and one full). Whoever made it obviously thinks the culture believes that real men have beards.
H/T Instapundit.
Gillette is owned by Procter & Gamble. P&G owns so many brands, including other shaving products: https://atlantablackstar.com/2018/12/13/procter-gamble-acquires-tristan-walkers-bevel-shaving-line-other-beauty-brands-in-multi-million-dollar-deal/
I don’t know how many shaving products or razors P&G owns, but it’s hard to boycott a company that owns so many products. If you don’t buy one of their razor brands, you’ll buy another brand.
If Gillette becomes the brand for women, manginas, and SJWs, P&G will simply create another brand for more manly men.
Those stupid marketers from Gillette think they are really smart about jumping in this progressive bandwagon. But trust me it will come back to bite them. I know a lot of guys in real life who will no longer buy Gillette products. They are fed up with this whole Cultural Marxism, PC Culture, identity politics and so on. Gillette products used to be a symbol for masculinity and vigor, now it will be a symbol for soyboyism, radical leftists and SJW. Way to go Gillette!
If you are running a corporation or business you should know better than trying to get into politics. The most stupid thing a business can do is make their political opinions public. There is no going back from this. Now they’ve permanently lost respect from a lot of customers. If only they kept their mouth shut.
@RPL
In other words, it would be the kind of catastrophe that makes Gillette the cautionary tale for every Marketing 101 class.
So I checked: my skin (was) is too sensitive for a razor and so I have always for many decades used an electric razor – always liked the way in old ‘B’ movies American men sitting at their desks seemed to be using them – but I occasionally go over my face with a normal razor. and I checked and yes the throw-away razors are Gillette. That is what Tesco sell and they are better than Tesco’s cheaper own brand. I can’t see that Tesco will stop stocking Gillette or thus I stop purchasing – and I will not be shamed as no one sees my toiletries. Perhaps this ad has not aired here, I know not.
The question is: ‘Is any publicity better than none?’ Apparently not. The best known example of company self-sabotage in England came in 1991 when the CEO of Ratners, Gerald Ratner at a dinner addressing the Institute of Directors gave an amusing speech where he dissed his own companies products, cheap jewellery by describing them as ‘cheap tat’ and saying they were cheaper than an M&S sandwich but would not last as long. ROFL. Ratners value then fell by half a billion pounds sterling and narrowly avoided going out of business. It has since as do all failing organisations changed its name (having also fired Ratner) though presumably not the quality of its products.
Gillette’s competitors should be able in their own future advertising to capitalise on this self-inflicted own-goal and rather bears out my view that as marketing departments are run by women that marketing departments tend to reflect these women’s views and prejudices rather than the real interests of their employers.
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The problem for Leftists is that in their echo chambers they really think that 95% of people – and 100% of those who “matter” — agree with them. So they are endlessly shocked to find they’ve alienated half their market. I run an Internal Audit group that usually deals with more traditional risks, but I have often warned our CEO and heads of HR, etc. to keep out of the culture wars. Those missteps can destroy a brand forever.
your observation about Gillette is accurate, assuming there remain enough American men that an effeminate reputation could hurt the brand
regarding beards: mine is about 15 years on, now. I shave under my lip and below my jaw about twice a week, maybe. the rest I trim to 1/8″ less than once a week. It saves me so much on razors that I don’t have any brand loyalty: when i buy a new handle, I purchase whichever brand for which the Kroger grocery sells a store-brand cartridge. for a while, that was Schick, then they swapped to Gillette. I had an old Gillette handle, so I just bought the knock-off Mach-3. one day somebody in my family will buy me a safety razor handle (or I’ll inherit one), and then I’ll probably never buy another cartridge.
various broadcast propagandists insist that Americans have brand loyalty: it isn’t true. Wal mart, Amazon, Best Buy, et al destroyed that with marginal price over marginal quality marketing. anybody who cares is balancing price versus quality, perhaps considering ROI and practical depreciation, and, very rarely, origin of a product or service. in a country where you can’t trust that the lettuce won’t be covered with mestizo shit, people don’t have brand loyalty.
On Topic: Kurt Schlichter misses it by that much.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/01/17/we-need-to-retoxify-masculinity-n2539123
Damn it, Kurt! You had one job!
They are making what is in effect a bet.
They knew that the ad would alienate a certain percentage of the population — that was clear. Their “bet” is that by driving a wedge, they can drive towards their product other people in the “higher end” of the market, while alienating people in the “lower end” of the market. This is based on their almost certain assumption that the higher end is dominated by soy progressivism and the lower end is dominated by “deplorables”. They want more of the former and less of the latter in the customer mix because the former can be marketed to for premium products that have larger profit margins.
The problem they are facing is that the backlash against this is not coming only from the lower end of the market. It’s also coming from the higher end of the market. This is likely something that they completely did not expect, given how low elite men have been laying in the metoo era. I am sure that they are genuinely surprised/shocked that the backlash has been as broad as it has been, rather than a backlash of mostly “deplorable” types that they fully expected would happen and, in fact, wanted to trigger in order to drive the higher end towards their product.
I think that the timing of their campaign was actually unfortunate for them, because it came sl close-on after the APA fiasco, which itself triggered a rather broad pushback, including from higher end men, and which therefore had “primed the pump” for a backlash against the Gillette ad that has probably been stronger and more diversified, at least from the higher end of the market, than it would have been had the APA announcement never happened, or if it had happened six months ago.
I love the idea of using Gillettequette to derisively describe someone’s social white knighting, but unfortunately the word looks awful in text, so it will likely never catch on. as in: Some guy is trying to stop you from hitting on a girl? “Buddy, quit with the Gillettequette, she’s a big girl and can handle herself”
MSM doing their best to gaslight and/or set up the only acceptable (false) terms of discussion:
E.g. Today Show
Interestingly enough, the local Costcto had their own Kirkland brand razor packs front and center when you walked in the entrance this past week. Wonder if that was in response to Gillette’s stepping in it?
I hope you are right. The ad was an effort by P&G to move the window so that ridicule wasn’t an option, but thankfully, Trump did it anyhow.
I can’t imagine what Romney’s or Jeb’s response, or Clinton’s, would have been.
But closer to home, I am afraid of an opposite effect on the churches, or at least mine, because they hate Trump and reflexively oppose any view he takes.
The best thing a razor company could do at this point is to take the Gillette advert and completely turn it on its head, removing the sinister undertones into positives. Instead of white knights stepping in to help m’ladies when a guy asks them to smile, the women could instead each have big smile in response. When the man on the sidewalk sees the attractive women walking down the street, instead of the black hero stepping in to cock block, the other man makes his move with the next scene showing that man and woman with a family and home being happy. Instead of the line of BBQing evil dude bros, they can have families together, sharing good times with the kids running around shooting each other with water guns.
They could end it off showing Ms Ford being led away by a group of Policemen after being found guilty of false allegations against Supreme Justice Kavanagh with him standing outside the courtroom with a bunch of men all cheering on with beers in their hands.
I found a video of the Trump quote you cite and he doesn’t mention anything about Gillette. Roger Kimball threw that in, probably as satire. Or maybe he didn’t see the clip and misreported what someone else told him about the quote.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/01/15/trump-hamburgers-first-lady-salads-clemson-sot-ebof-vpx.cnn
“…P&G will simply create another brand for more manly men.”
And throw away 100 years of marketing goodwill.
My father in law was a loyal Valvoline motor oil guy. Sung it’s praises. Bought it even when other brands were on sale. Why? When he was young, a Valvoline employee gave him a quart for free when he was low on oil.
I’m sure there is a legion of dad’s who advised their sons to use Gillette, because they were good blades. And those sons have continued to use them. That kind if goodwill and loyalty is not rebuilt overnight with a new brand (if ever).
What took men over 100 hundred years to create, a woman can destroy with one advert.
So we can now call the SJW guys “Gillette boys”? Cool!
Soylette Boys!
Buy based on quality and lifetime ownership price. Last time I bought a safety razor I bought a Braun, which for all I know produces marketing material as bad as Gilette’s, but it doesn’t matter because they benefitting me and my family’s finances more than the other options. It is effectively impossible to be “immune” to marketing, but we can ignore these advertisements and the conversations they are designed to provoke.
“the kind of man who shaves with Gillette”
This is brilliant. I’m going to use this and it will definitely catch on. Let’s help make “Gillette” a curse word.
The left-over Gillette razors and shaving cream on my counter remind me daily what a fool I’ve been to buy them.
Retailers are desperate to keep profitable goods on their shelves. Dick’s attacked the second amendment and is now having to repurpose floor space for ALL their hunting equipment because it turns out hunters like guns but buy more than just guns when they go to a sporting-goods store. I wonder if now is the right time for retailers to replace Gillette with some of the bargain brands alluded-to on the last thread (what are they, again?) Or Schick. Schick is a German word that is more-associated with square jaws and deep voices. Gillette sounds like a French brand an effete Bourbon king might use were one alive today. “Let them eat cake! Hand me my Gillette razor, would you?”
Damn it, Kurt! You had one job!
Kurt wobbles. In the linked article he credits the warrior women with bayonets. Only one year ago he wrote this about the moral cowardice of senior officers regarding women in combat (he is himself a retired senior Army officer):
“But they quake in their boots back home in the face of an enemy they don’t understand and that can destroy their careers – the Social Justice Warrior. That’s why you don’t see them saying what every damn one of them knows is true – that women, despite their heart and commitment, are a net liability in ground combat units, that trans troops are an expensive distraction and damaging to morale, and that the insane focus on “diversity” programs sucks up priceless training time and fuels, rather than quells, discord in the ranks.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/10/02/draft-n2389301
He’s more secure in his appreciation for gays in uniform however, writing this in 2015:
“Personally, I’m glad the gay soldiers I worked with over the years don’t have to worry about being hassled anymore and can focus on continuing to serve.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2015/01/05/colonel-united-states-army-retired-n1937944
He doesn’t scare easy, does a lot of good work and we need him, but his Overton window is shifting towards being very woke about military social experimentation.
It’s a sad end for a cool American story. Gillette invented the disposable razor blade, and the process of manufacturing them–which was difficult because of the properties of thin steel. A TV series called “Inventions that Shook the World” had an episode on him.
@Michael
I love God, my neighbors, and America and I won’t let my country be subverted for the sake of literally a few bucks under the guise of “family finances”.
Gillette, the razor for men who sit while they pee.
I bought a German safety razor years ago. Seemed like I lost a pint of blood every time I shaved. It was well crafted but I couldn’t get the hang of it. I have a thick, fast growing beard – dunno if that matters.
“I saw at least one internet commenter yesterday referring to “the kind of man who shaves with Gillette”. If this does catch on it won’t just lower Gillette sales for a quarter or two; it could very well damage the brand long term.”
Yeah, that will catch on fast.
Man: I can’t believe you’re a (fill in football team) fan! They’re losers!
Other man: Says the man who still buys Gillette. Do you use them before or after you get a manicure?
@Michael
“It is effectively impossible to be ‘immune’ to marketing, but we can ignore these advertisements and the conversations they are designed to provoke.”
I hate marketing and have structured my life around keeping my home free of it. Permanent logos are taped up. Internet ads are all blocked, and we do not own a TV. This stuff is easy to do. I also avoid dropping names of corporations in casual conversation, and teach the family to do the same. This part is hard, try it sometime 🙂
Sure, when we go out it’s a free-for-all, you can’t prevent that. But you can make your castle a neutral place with little effort.
@Dalrock
Speaking of Trump, I think the Gillette commercial did what Trump running for office did: it exposed or revealed what a lot of people genuinely think about certain issues. It’s fascinating to see, for example, Reason magazine shaming men for not liking the ad, rather than pointing out how their response reveals the relationship between the company and the customer and how in a free market, people have the freedom to choose in a way they do not in a socialist economy. Also, this is what happens when a company ignores or loses touch with its customer base.
For all their talk about “muh free market,” the Beltway libertarians have now demonstrated they’ll drop that narrative when a more important narrative is at stake.
People are saying if you didn’t like the ad, there’s something wrong with you. It’s the opposite. If you didn’t pick up what they obviously put down, got the message and liked it, or thought it was appropriate content for a product advertisement, there’s something wrong with you.
The message of the advertisement is actually fairly innocuous by current standards, the main problem is its delivery. Sanctimonious, heavy handed, cringe worthy. Also preachy as anything, effectively telling men they are all tainted and bad and they should atone. I think this is the problem many people have with it.
But when I try pointing this out on left-leaning blogs, they just don’t get it. “The message is the absolute truth! And this is a dead serious message, it needs a dead serious tone! Gillette are aligning themselves with the right side of history and will be rewarded! And only a small minority of MRA dude-bros could possibly find anything wrong with this ad! They are the ones responsible for all the negative publicity, and Gillette is better off without them as customers!
Personally I’m looking into just ceasing to do business with P&G entirely. That’s a pretty tall order though because they have so many brands all over the place.
“I think that the timing of their campaign was actually unfortunate for them, because it came sl close-on after the APA fiasco
God’s pretty good at the whole timing thing.
CSI said: The message of the advertisement is actually fairly innocuous by current standards … The message is the absolute truth!
CSI, could you tell me what the message of the advertisement is, the message that you think is the absolute truth. And could you guestimate for what percentage of men it is the absolute truth. This is an honest request – I’m not trying to bait you. I have not watched the add and I do not intend to ever watch it. But I’m curious about what you are thinking.
CSI, could you tell me what the message of the advertisement is,
I think the message is mostly silly. And I haven’t watched the ad in its entirety either, it is embarrassing. I was summarizing how SJWs respond whenever I point out how clumsy and over-the-top the advertisement is. They fervently believe the ad is complete truth and there is nothing wrong with its message.
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I am not going to clear my house of Mach III blades just for this, but I will consider what to do if I ever run out. I have been keeping my razor in a cup of olive oil in the shower and blades last about 6 months that way.
I had to find a few new base razors several months ago because the handle finally wore out, but I have enough blades to last for years at this rate.
How do you shop NotaBene? End caps and special placing in stores are a form of advertising. So are online recommendations and product search results. Marketing is unavoidable, even with the steps you note.
You clearly face some since you have an Internet connection someplace to post here.
I use an old-fashioned safety razor ($10), and get packs of 2-sided razor blades that come in boxes of 100. It works out to about 3 cents a blade. A pack of 100 (really 200) blades lasts me more than 6 months, and I shave at least every other day. I think those economics even have the Dollar Shave Club beat.
RichardP,
You missed the quotation marks. CSI was not saying “The message is the absolute truth”, he was saying that’s what the lefties on the lefty blogs say. You misunderstood his post.
I love God, my neighbors, and America and I won’t let my country be subverted for the sake of literally a few bucks under the guise of “family finances”.
You don’t buy anything made in a foreign country by cheap foreign labor?
It’s highly unlikely that it’s just a coincidence that the APA announcement, the Gillette ad, and the PETA ad all arrived in the same week. As Rollo pointed out in https://therationalmale.com/2019/01/16/gender-war/, our opponents are laying the groundwork for a female President in 2020 by demonizing all aspects of masculinity now.
My new descriptor for manginas and white knight enablers is “Gillette soy boys”. Use it often, use it loud, use it to innoculate oneself from the Gillette contagion, because a good pair of testicles are a terrible thing to waste.
In Brazilian Portuguese, Gilette is to razor what Xerox is to copying machines.
It will be interesting to see if that will last.
CSI
I think the message is mostly silly. And I haven’t watched the ad in its entirety either,
You are ignorant. Your opinion is of little to no value, yet you insist on sharing it. That’s dumb.
Do you enjoy shaving with your Gillette razor?
Researched on all the subsidaries Proctor & Gamble owns throughout the world, and the USA. Not including their product umbrella……they own controlling or smaller distribution rights through many other health / home / self-care products This is exhausting….and I am not even half-way done with who they manufacture for. For example…..Proctor & Gamble may not “own” Crew shampoo for men, but they may indeed manufacture it for them. Same with smaller or “discount brands” for other companies or chain stores……
When I was at IBM (storage systems division) we built and manufactured most of Sun Microsystems mid-range servers. Sure, they were a competitor…..but it was still easier and cheaper for Sun to “contract” with us to build their product. It was all IBM…….except for the proprietary information, the style of the casing….Sun would then “slap” a Sun logo on it and it now was a Sun Microsystems product. IBM still pulled a decent profit from this type of agreement, as Proctor & Gamble does too.
This is very common in these larger than life companies and conglomerates. Good luck boycotting them. Market share for Gillette may go down……but remember too, it’s the NARRATIVE they want. These folks don’t care if they bankrupt or run a company into the ground, they will move on to the next one to feed and bleed them dry in order to control the narrative.
Been shaving with Gillette since the 1980’s. I have about 50 Fusion blades in backstock, they make a great product and me throwing them out won’t do anything to effect their stock price or market share. They are already paid for.
I pretty much consider what the psychological industrial complex peddles to be the modern day equivalent of blood leeches. From what I have observed, psychologists never actually heal people, they are merely crutches, friends for hire, and for life. Witness how “patients” become addicted to their therapists. Not a bad way to earn a living, in most other professions you’d be fired for the same lack of results.
@7817
Correct, I try not to. That is next to impossible, but when I can I buy American made products. When I can’t, I reflect how much we need a new Sam Walton who did prioritize Made in America over cheap anything made with foreign labor–and who made Walmart American red white and blue instead of Swedish blue and yellow.
What I don’t do is tell myself that it doesn’t matter; I don’t *let* myself be content with the subversion.
when I can I buy American made products
I didn’t use to think this was important. I was wrong.
Cane,
Sam Walton tried to prioritize “made in the USA” stuff, but it was too expensive for most people to buy and that ended. I am pretty sure that came to an end under Walton himself, not just his heirs who lack his character.
I don’t think there is any chance a company like Gillette (owned by a conglomerate) did not foresee this backlash. Yet they went ahead with it anyway. Could this backlash be exactly what they want?
But I just can’t see how such a backlash will benefit Procter & Gamble
Hey Dalrock, and to anyone else whose interested. I found this article yesterday that talks about men being red pilled on YouTube. You may want to check it out, it’s very interesting.
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/youtube-red-pill-men-right-wing-hate-radicalization
Personally I’m looking into just ceasing to do business with P&G entirely. That’s a pretty tall order though because they have so many brands all over the place.
The oligopoly is rapidly becoming the de facto model for North American business. Anything we can reasonably do to slow its growth (e.g. buying from Mom and Pop businesses whenever practical or possible) is a good thing for the rehabilitation of our society.
Cane Caldo — “Correct, I try not to. That is next to impossible, but when I can I buy American made products. When I can’t, I reflect how much we need a new Sam Walton who did prioritize Made in America over cheap anything made with foreign labor–and who made Walmart American red white and blue instead of Swedish blue and yellow.”
Sam Walton and Co. destroyed the last vestiges of family-owned self-sufficient business in America.
When I was young, all the things you now buy at Walmart and etc. were purchased from stores privately owned and operated by men, women, and often their older children. Usually in the downtowns of each burg. The benefits of this were vast, and self-ownership was the foundation of the (male/father-led) middle class. A huge, thriving middle class.
The Waltons are the richest family on the planet, and their influence greatly concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. At the expense of tens-of-millions.
Here’s the major breakdown —
Jim Walton $48.4 billion
S. Robson Walton $48.2 billion
Alice Walton $48.1 billion
Lukas Walton $15.6 billion
Ann Walton Kroenke $6.6 billion
Christy Walton $6.7 billion
Nancy Walton Laurie $5.7 billion
Hmm yeah lotsa alices and nancys there. Wonder where their campaign contributions go?
America needs a new Sam Walton like it needs a new wave of feminism.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
See:
Wal-Mart’s bankrupting of then U.S.A.-owned Rubbermaid.
Maid in America Sam…
Many commentators on this blog think that a boycott of Gillette, or a Trump-induced change of attitude toward the brand, will harm the parent company, Procter & Gamble, about as much as a mosquito bite would an elephant.
Consider that Procter & Gamble bought Gillette for a whopping $57 Billion dollars..
If straight men stop buying the brand because it gets associated with the whole Cultural Marxist agenda that they are getting sick of, then the bean counters at P&G will be flat out paying the interest on their purchase. They will not laugh.
Disney bought Star Wars for just $4 Billion, and the preachy cringy Social Justice messaging has damaged the brand to the point that Disney is unlikely to recoup it’s costs.
The Ripple Effect will be that Feminist Marketing Executives will be considered corporate poison and big business, the traditional workplace of the modern female, will be even more reluctant to employ them or give them big projects, thus impeding their careers.. This just might turn out to be a massive own goal against “Women’s Progress”.
Also H/T Instapundit:
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/robot-chefs-ces-2019-flippy-breadbot/
“They said the development of robot chefs and baristas is not being driven by a desire to replace human workers. The businesses deploying such automated systems say they simply can’t find people to hire.”
and
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mitchfree1/2019/01/16/skills-gap-gives-workers-unprecedented-power-perks/#7a9528f9344c
“A survey from CareerBuilder reports 25 percent of employers in manufacturing have lost revenue due to unfilled vacancies, and many are offering extended overtime pay to existing workers as they struggle to keep production lines running.”
All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
“But I just can’t see how such a backlash will benefit Procter & Gamble”
The corporate officers will get invited to the best parties. It doesn’t get more beneficial than that.
“Many commentators on this blog think that a boycott of Gillette, or a Trump-induced change of attitude toward the brand, will harm the parent company, Procter & Gamble, about as much as a mosquito bite would an elephant.”
Men make this an excuse for passivity and apathy. “A boycott’s not perfect, so I don’t have to do anything!” The perfect is made the enemy of the good.
You have to start somewhere, just like the Left started its Long March with the first step.
Hi, Dalrock. One of your female readers here. I’ve read your blog for years, but never commented. Someone may have mentioned this already…
I just wanted to share that Egard watches did a fantastic response ad to Gillette. I think you would all like it.
Always enjoy your work!
A relative works for an unnamed multinational in the Raleigh, NC area, in a white collar role. They have manufacturing at his site, Anyway, they are always having problems filling jobs in the factory. The reason is quite simple: the pay is too low. The kind of people they are looking for can get a better deal working at a quickie lube or some other low skilled job. So what do they do when production falls behind? Simple: the marshal people out of the offices onto the factory floor. They have people who are paid six figures assembling crap, and probably doing a mediocre job of it, to save paying people an extra $2/hr.
Were those x86 servers or Sparc servers? The Sparc CPU was (and still is) proprietary to Sun (now owned by Oracle).
Ray,
That was a limited subset unless you are 90+. Department stores, along with K-Mart and such had the most goods when I was growing up in a medium sized city. Mom and pop were VERY limited.
Many mom and pop stores are also quite obnoxious, often because they may be the only game in the area. They are not wonderful just because they exist.
Meat and vegetables used to come from small family farms too. Should we forcibly go back to that just so a few can prosper? Such stores need to provide a reason for shopping there, not just higher prices and some false sense of loyalty.
I remember my mother griping about the attitude of the local store in the smaller town in Iowa she lived in until she passed away a few years ago. She would probably have been biased toward the local store, but the price difference was too large and the attitude was worse. That is a bad combination.
I have the same issue come up in the boardgame area. A few people I know always buy at a local store, but I don’t play at a local store, so I see no reason just to pay them more simply to exist. The one nearest to me has very old stock (he never clears things out) and not the best attitude either. The fact that comics are going so SJW as well also keeps me out. Nice people to play games with there, but I am a little older as well so the atmosphere is not the top of my list, even though I like playing the games.
Google employees are upset that an executive used the word “family”: https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/16/google-family-triggered-meltdown/
A Google executive sparked a fierce backlash from employees by using the word “family” in a weekly, company-wide presentation, according to internal documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Many Google employees became angry that the term was used while discussing a product aimed at children, because it implied that families have children, the documents show. The backlash grew large enough that a Google vice president addressed the controversy and solicited feedback on how the company could become more inclusive. …
The use of “family” as a synonym for “with children” has a long-standing association with deeply homophobic organizations. This does not mean we should not use the word “family” to refer to families, but it mean we must doggedly insist that family does not imply children. …
“Using the word ‘family’ in this sense bothers me too,” wrote another employee, who felt excluded by the term because she was neither married nor a parent.
“It smacks of the ‘family values’ agenda by the right wing, which is absolutely homophobic by its very definition,” she wrote, adding: “[I]t’s important that we fix our charged language when we become aware of how exclusionary it actually is. As a straight person in a relationship, I find the term ‘family’ offensive because it excludes me and my boyfriend, having no children of our own.”
Okay Anonymous Reader you are right about not being able to properly judge the ad until I’ve seen all of it. Having forced myself to watch it, although on the surface it appears innocuous there is an underlying darker implication. Now it addresses one actual serious issue – bullying, and then a whole lot of non-issues. Ogling girls in bikinis, pretend groping, mansplaining, street harassment, young boys play-fighting.
All these non-issues are presented in the same deadly serious tone you see normally reserved for much more serious issues. Since many SJWs see no problem with this tone, the implication is they regard these issues as being very serious matters – which requires a serious punishment.
I suspect Rubbermaid would have had problems even without Walmart. Many companies fail to shift with things.
I’m going to forge myself a straight razor – that way I won’t even have to buy razors from anyone. Women will not be allowed to participate (not that it’s even that big of a project, anyway)
x86 of course Frank. Sun even came to IBM offering their (cough) wide range of amazing products right as they were going bankrupt…..IBM shrugged, they were leaving that industry anyway…no profit left in storage systems at that point. Oracle purchased the whole thing……probably done something with it, or still working with the customer base that uses it……..there still is market share there I would suppose…….heck, IBM was still bringing in handsome revenue from “tape drive” storage systems from plenty of business when I joined in 1993…..and in 1999 it was still bringing in predicted, and respectable revenue.
Good to see you around, Jason.
@Mountain Man said: You misunderstood his post.
Yes, I did. I realized that as soon as I read his response to me right after my post.
Frank K
““A survey from CareerBuilder reports 25 percent of employers in manufacturing have lost revenue due to unfilled vacancies, and many are offering extended overtime pay to existing workers as they struggle to keep production lines running.”
Wait a minute. Isn’t this why everyone in Western countries are importing immigrants, you know, to keep production lines going? If not, why are we importing them?
I won’t be bothering you for long. Came out of hibernation to see nothing has really changed, and it won’t…….If men cannot even convince their respected churches of the issues at hard, the pastors or deacons, or “leaders”
Well, how are we gonna change multi-conglomerate-gazillion companies like this? We’re not. The change has to happen in our own respected churches, and parishes first. Not going to happen.
Some of the comments are missing the point…….first, this is a TV commercial. Who watches TV? MOSTLY women today……by a long shot this commercial was made for them to say in their hen-like clatches of equally neurotic women of “umm…so great to see Gillette taking a stand for my poor mistakes and holding men accountable.”
Second……Gillette could care less if they lose market share. These vampires at Proctor & Gamble could care less if the company goes bust (it won’t) they will move on to the next company unscathed by their past performance and do the same thing. Any of you ever read Rand’s fiction? Starnes Motors in g”Atlas Shrugged” it didn’t matter the polices failed, it was because of the “people” were just not ready for the new age, or economic system, or social engineering. The workers paid the price, the consumer lost a product and everyone forgot about the motor company.
Similar situation here.
And lastly……what of it? So, let’s say Gillette apologized. Pulled the ad (won’t happen) but suppose they did. What of it then? Would you return to the product, make excuses about how they animal test, they manufacture in foreign countries, should listen to Trump….th greatest president ever……..and make everything here, while jacking the cost even more so a line worker can afford to have a middle class living? No, most of the Christian sphere would want public executions of the people who made the ad….and then it still would not have been enough. FInancial compensation would then be demanded by many (leeches that humans are)
So……what is this protest going to do? Put people out of work if business slows……..and it won’t be the executive “alphas” paying the price it will be the guy who is married with a few kids barely paying his mortgage for his wife and kids working on the line in some p&G plant.. That guy. The one you all claim to “stand” for.
Fix your own churches, and make stands there before deciding to “take on” a large multi national amoral company who could care less if you boycott or not
While you can’t necessary boycott everything P&G makes you can significantly reduce what you pay them. Even switching over to a store brand product they manufacture reduces their margins.
In addition to gillette which I probably spend $50-60 a year on, I identified another $300-400 worth of stuff just off the wiki site to replace as well. If a million families follow suit C executives will get fired.
No. You are wrong. Excutives as a rule don’t get fired. They get a golden parachute and are “removed” and they go on to other companies.
Plenty of “store brands” are manufactured by P&G for these stores around the world, or if not not manufactured…..they have a hand in some distribution. P&G biggest competitors are “Colgate-Palmolive” and “Unilever” with their respected brands under their umbrella of products.
So…..where was the outrage over P&G making that race-baiting commercials “My Black Is Beautiful”? No boycott or protests. How about “Throwing Like A Girl”? That was P&G too, no outrage. No boycotts. No apologies from them. What about all those football players braiding “little girls hair” for “Maybeline” another P&G product. No boycotts. None of you real men telling your wife “no more maybeline for you. I’m going shopping with you to make sure you never buy that makeup again!”
A commercial about a mens product, about some social justice message that is and was mostly agreed by and with and for women causes outrage. Why are you surprised by this? Companies have abandoned principles a long time ago.
For the past few days I have been going over who they own….what distributors they own and who they distribute to and what subsidary of what supplier……the list is a rabbit hole….,,,like Deep State…….just gets bigger and bigger.
Stand up to your deacon, your pastor, your priest, your pope, your church heirarchy and make changes there before “virtue signaling” about how much a real man you are by standing up to Gillette……and they don’t care. they really don’t.
seventiesjason — I am delurking to say great to have you back. Good challenge on taking a stand in our local Christian community. I have to say it’s a lot harder than I expected.
My beloved home church once was an exemplary Bible and missions powerhouse that was always naturally racially diverse. The senior pastor as he approaches retirement has drifted to favor “diversity” virtue signaling, and woman pleasing teaching and practice. It now soft pedals the word of God on any feminist sensitive topic, throws men under the bus for social faux pas all the while excusing female sin that even pagan women condemn. But try to address things either with the pastors or elders and it is like catching a cloud in a net. Principled elders don’t want to give weight to second-hand reports, while pastors treat gossip as a sacrament, a means of grace, provided it’s in the service of some woman’s [perceived] interests. Even when time shows the error of their ways, no apology is needed, as it was “just a misunderstanding”. Over and over again.
Any advice, anyone?
Glad to have you back, Jason.
“Men make this an excuse for passivity and apathy.”
Exactly.Stop being a god damn Gillette. Be a man and do something.
Inaccrate Thursday…….about having me back………but I’ll let it slide, and I’ll be back off this thing within a week. I have to make contact with Opus. I want to meet him, take him out to dinner while I am in London…..he is welcome to come with me to a “northern soul” dance but I don’t think that’s his cup of tea.
The businesses deploying such automated systems say they simply can’t find people to hire.”
BULLSHIT.
Anyway, they are always having problems filling jobs in the factory. The reason is quite simple: the pay is too low. The kind of people they are looking for can get a better deal working at a quickie lube or some other low skilled job. So what do they do when production falls behind? Simple: the marshal people out of the offices onto the factory floor. They have people who are paid six figures assembling crap, and probably doing a mediocre job of it, to save paying people an extra $2/hr.
Yup.
There has never been a labor shortage per se. What TPTB have called a “labor shortage” has almost never been anything more than a shortage of workers who will do this job or that for the wages they want to pay.
Labor costs make up a significant portion of the bottom line at most companies and companies are often very ruthless about not wanting to pay more than the very bottom, often below market rate for most of their jobs. The money saved flows directly into the pockets of the top executives while the costs of doing business that way are much more diffused and are sometimes socialized. Like Target and Walmart workers still finding themselves needing social welfare benefits to get by. Hence the top executives are all in favor of MOAR, MOAR, MOAR immigration at all levels, not just the illegals, but also the H-1B’s, H-2B’s, L-1’s and OPT’s, just to name the most popular foreign worker programs.
Trump, disgustingly enough, just threw many of us under the bus with his offer to expand the H-1B program as part of whatever dealmaking he’s attempting.
Men, buy Gillette when you’re ready to slice your balls off.
Trump, disgustingly enough, just threw many of us under the bus with his offer to expand the H-1B program as part of whatever dealmaking he’s attempting.
Yup. The base needs to give him a swift, hard kick in the nuts for that unconscionable stunt.
Interesting too, the Gillette HQ is in Boston. A shitlib town in a shitlib state full of hedge fund pirates, big pharma soma pushers, and ivory tower commie intellectuals. But also hardscrabble working class families clinging to what remains of manufacturing.
So maybe some of those men filing into Gillette stadium for their bread and circuses will start to connect some dots. Probably not. But some day men will have to realize their leftist prog rulers – and their corporate wage slave masters hate them.
If only Tom Brady’s toxic masculinity had been stomped out by a couple of his sage black teammates before he used it to win repeatedly and then leverage that into a marriage to a professionally sexually objectified womyn and crank out two toxic white male spawn, maybe some other team with a black coach or a female placekicker even could male it out of the AFC East. And we would finally have equality.
Good points about how any claims of “labor shortages” are probably contrived. I can see another motive for such claims – public relations. The impression such a claim gives is that your company, or whole industry, is thriving and expanding.
It is a shortage of cheap people and/or those of the right skin color, especially Indian (dot, not feather).
@BillyS & 7817
Sam Walton moved Walmart into the “Made in USA” business space in 1985 with the circulation of letters to thousands of businesses asking them to produce products for Walmart to sell at competitive prices. It worked, for Walmart and for those businesses. He died in 1992, only seven years later and before Walmart dropped the “Made in the USA” theme, to our detriment. It came to an end because the will to make it work died with the leader.
While commies loved to say that Walmart killed the Mom ‘n’ Pop stores, that is at best a half-truth, which is the equivalent of a full lie. Walmart did outcompete Mom ‘n’ Pop department stores and so put them out of business. However, Walmart also sent the Mom ‘n’ Pop video rental, dry-cleaning, haircut salon, and other businesses into orbit. Everywhere a Walmart opened, individuals opened those next door and succeeded because of Walmart’s draw.
Gillette, the gay blade!
I mentioned….and I know I have not been the first………maybe a decade a ago to a bunch of men at our “man up” group (The Salvation Army’s name for mens fellowship) that notice on the sports shows now:
*Every locker room reporter is a chick. baseball, football, basketball, tennis, even lacrosse
* The men doing the sports news at pregame, halftime are wearing softer color ties like mauve, purple, pink and the suits are not planed. They are almost “gay” looking and “femme”
*Notice the set, the design……total chick friendly
*Notice that they ALWAYS have the “the hot girl” in pole-swinging shoes sitting withe the “guys” during the halftime report or pregame shows….and reading off a cue-card to make her look smart, or like she knows what she is talking about
*Notice the “guy” sport shows on the networks are full of bobbleheads, toys and juvenile 5th grade behavior?
*Stacy Johnson-Klein the Fresno State womens basketball coach would wear spiked heels, sexy outfits while coaching girls on the sideline……was pretty flagrant in her cuteness for her age. In 2011 or so…suddenly she files this massive “sexual harassment suit” with Fresno State and wins. Also while coaching….since Fresno State paid “female coaches less” she got to do local commercials which according to NACCA rules is NOT allowed. Women at the time were saying in Fresno “she’s so girly! I like that!” That was the basis of her merits to coach a sports team. Her being “girly”
*All the commercials are Viagra, bladder control medicine, really high end sports cars, and lite beer
*Pre game, post game mid game shows now have the “soap opera stories” about the more attractive men in sports….their hot wife, their amazing children, all the challenges they face as a sports star wife or the really hard life a guy like Tom Brady has.
*Women subtly and slowly demanding more rules in football rto make it “not so dangerous”
*Men being lectured “enough” with PSA NFL commercials, and products like P&G
Awful sports journalism. Today….every hot locker room reporter “How does that make you feel?” Back in the 1970’s ol’ Howard Cosell would walk right up to the QB after a crushing defeat on the field…the QB is covered in sweat, dirt is noticeable agitated and Cosell says “Hey, you guys looked terrible out there. How do you expect to win football games with a team of bozos like you had today?” And he would point the mic right to the QB wanting an answer. SF Giants live radio commentator Greenwald back in the 1970’s thru the 1990’s gave no passes to the Giants in play by play action. Today its all feelings, and we wouldn’t want to “dare” call out a bad play on the field, he’ll try harder next time is the matra today.
Don’t get me started on the NBA. The last five minutes now takes an hour to play
Vermont “banned” Walmart because of the outcry of its citizens in the early 1990’s because it would “wreck” small town Vermont with its mom n’ pop stores, the smaller “country” chains like IGA, and Ames……..chain stores but they had been operating in “smaller city America” for a long time.
No self-respecting Vermonter would DARE ever, ever shop at Walmart. Well, Walmart built several stores on the border towns of Vermont in New York State, New Hampshire and Mass. Guess what? Credit card information and tracking showed Vermonters driving over the respected borders to shop at the store they would “never, never shop at”
IGA and Ames had been in decline for a long time before this, and mom and pop stores….many of them good……but many of them really bad. New Yorkers in the border of Vermont who smoked would drive over the border to buy cigarettes back in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s. When I was in college they were $1.25 a pack for the good brands, while in New York State they were $3.50 to $4.00 back then.
And she’s Brazilian of German descent. Obviously an escaped Nazi.
Cane,
I didn’t look closely at the timeline. I had read a book or two on Walton and he had some great traits. The rest of the heirs not so much.
Does anyone else here remember the controversy Proctor & Gamble got in circa 1985 with the wizard symbol they put on all their products? Many thought it was Satanic and there was an organized boycott. P&G soon caved in and removed the wizard from their packaging.
Jay, that was back i the 1970’s as well. Christians back then said it was owned by “the church of satan” and were gonna boycott and put them out of business.
How do you know which humans identify as boys at birth?
You gotta love Titania
Was just thinking this the other day. Bic or Schick could have buried Gillette already if they had had a counter-signaling ad ready to go–especially one featuring women speaking candidly (with appropriate video in the background) of how much they love and respect their fathers, brothers, sons, etc. Similarly, ya, they could have done the cute Viagra type commercial with the wife throwing out some “brand” of razors, approaching her husband as he prepares to shave (wearing his towel in the bathroom mirror) and had her hand him a Bic. BIC-For men…and the women who love their man.
BOOM.
Random Angeleno, I will check the numbers for the next quarter also, but I’m not that optimistic. Only a 5% decline would already be amazing, because P & G has so many brands…
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