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EA Comes Under Fire for Shady PR Stunts
EA has come under heavy fire lately for some deliberately shady PR techniques. You can't argue with the result, however, that has pretty much everyone (including us) talking about it. The question is: will extensive discussion, and the resulting widespread anger that seems to accompany it, actually help their game sales? Stunts have ranged from their "win a date with a booth babe" contest to paying game site editors a faux "bribe" to fit with their sin motif. "Outraged Christian bloggers, complaining female and LGBT gamers, editors being sent checks made out directly to them — all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage. The campaign has been childish, daring, and borderline tasteless. Writing checks directly to game writers is cheaper than advertising on a site, with a much better result."
all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage.
Submitter and the editor didn't actually see the ironic thing here?
For that matter I didn't actually had heard or read about this game, but thanks to slashdot now reporting about this, I think I will just google it. Just to know what it is about. Maybe I even buy it - after all everyone is talking about it. Good work Slashdot!
So what kind of game it is? Does it look good? What features are there? Is it fun? Is there multiplayer, and how is it? Is it fun to play with friends?
In the latest chapter of this fun tale, EA has finally decided to simply send editors of prominent gaming sites checks for $200. The point? If the checks are cashed, the gaming press is greedy. If they're not, the gaming press is wasteful. "By cashing this check you succumb to avarice by harding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality. Make your choice and suffer the consequence for your sin," the included note stated. "And scoff not, for consequences are imminent." The sin theme remains, if nothing else, on-topic.
This has to be one of the first times money has been sent directly to reviewers and editors with the hope that the story is broken publicly, and that's what makes the stunt so devious; of course it's going to be written about. Joystiq cashed the check and donated the money to charity, Kotaku posted video of their check burning. Without having a list of sites that received the faux bribe, it's impossible to tell if anyone actually cashed the check and kept the money.
Cheapy D, who runs the popular deals site CheapAssGamer, weighed in on the check. "Kotaku charges an $8 CPM (cost per 1,000 banner impressions) for their standard advertising banners. Their news post about this PR stunt will likely surpass 40,000 views," he explained. "To err on the safe side, let's say the total cost of the check and fancy box is $300. Since [the post's author] burned the check, EA basically spent the equivalent of a $2.50 CPM for a front page news post on Kotaku. That is an incredible value. Nice job, EA Marketing!"
This sounds like a fun stunt. And now it continues on slashdot too. Someone is going to get a nice christmas bonus!
The hell you say!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Outraged Christian bloggers"?
Boy, remind me not to get on their bad side! They may pray me to death with their eerie powers...
Trolling is a art,
It got posted to the front page of slashdot, to be discussed endlessly. Total direct cost to EA to do this - $0, assuming ScuttleMonkey wasn't a recipient of one of the $200 checks.
I wonder if there might be a better place for creative, unconventional thinking, for risk taking, and for the willingness to not water down an idea because it might offend someone. Oh, at EA? Nevermind!
The current economic model for games means that there's a few huge winners, and a lot of games that ultimately lose money. In this environment, the selective pressure is massively against smaller independent studios. A small studio has to publish a hit every time, and this is becoming nearly impossible to do because of the expense involved in making a game with modern graphics. There's only a few success stories, and many failures. EA, on the other hand, can cash in on it's big hits and can afford to finance a variety of game projects, some of which will fail. Still, they want to make money : so EA game projects are going to be lower risk sequels whenever practical.
It's basic economics that created EA and gave it all it's power. We can hate them for what they are, but that doesn't change anything.
Why, its horrible that they are sending out money, and hot babes, and... wait, where can I sign up?
You "tl;dr"'d, didn't you?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I've RTFA, and they don't even tell us which IRC Network!
It sounds to me like EA has some madly-ambitious marketing executive who gets paid based on the number of sales, so he has authorized any wacky stunt imaginable to drive sales to their target audience (young men).
If additional sales could boost your yearly bonus check by $1,000,000.00, would you give a shit if you "offend" someone? No. Money talks, and it does so a lot louder than angry bloggers.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
They staged something at E3? It's cute and a good technique. Considering you get the odd Cosplay at E3, why the hell not...
They paid writers to write about it? Isn't that like... their job? If someone pays you money to write something, you write something! I only consider Bribery truly immoral if its to commit an immoral act. To write? Writing isn't immoral under any circumstances, you can write as much as you bloody want and it won't hurt anyone physically, and if its hurts them in any other regard its their own fault.
Seriously, I'm not a fan of EA or anything, but people are making it to be a contraversy because they WANT it to be a contraversy. I mean, God forbid SOME marketing executive realized that when something goes Viral its free advertising...
this is outrageous. Please, don't fall victim to this EA marketing ploy. It is unethical and EA should be shunned for this.
Please, as a show of unity against this marketing scheme, please send me all of the $200 checks. Once I have received a substantial amount of them I will take these checks and show EA where to shove them. It's the only way we can get our point across.
If you didn't get a check and would like to make a donation to the cause, please feel free to send that to me as well.
GAMERS UNITE!
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
They are marketing a game called Dante's Inferno and they are having fun with the deadly sins. This is just good marketing, plain and simple. People objecting need to get their funny bone tweaked.
Seriously. I think that although it could have been done *better*, this has been a fantastic marketing scheme. And to be honest, I don't really care if the Christian bloggers are freaking out, they're overreacting.
While I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, this stunt projected a view of your target demographic as lustful heterosexual males, when in reality a larger and larger portion of the gaming population are women and LGBT people.
I'm pretty sure a lesbian would be happy with that reward too. I guess they could have had two male models on hand for a gay guy/female winner, but to portray it as anti-homosexual is pretty unfair.
Not totally related but - why would you even make a 'gay gamer' site - do tastes in games really vary that much with sexual orientation? Seems like his whole job is built around being controversial and 'different'.
In theory, the best response of the media and industry should be the timeless wisdom of the net: "Don't feed the trolls". Ignore the faux protestors. Throw away the checks. Disregard the stupid "contest".
Alas, however, the mere fact that we have to keep repeating "Don't feed the trolls" is proof that EA will come out on the winning side of this, because the majority of fools in their target demographic either (A) enjoy being trolled, or (B) don't recognize a troll when they see it.
The only proper response is to allow their trolling to fall, and fail, unnoticed. Their game doesn't work unless others play along.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
You do realize the bloggers are upset because EA FAKED the protested of their own game and blamed it on christian groups. Most of the 'christian bloggers' probably didn't care about the game or even know it existed until they were slamed for a protest they had nothing to do with. For once I think they actually have something to gripe about, after all the fake protests lead to people thinking exactly what you just posted, when in reality the bloggers were not the ones protesting.
I did read the article. And I have to agree with the OP; who cares if you're offending a bunch of bible bangers? The bottom like is that while they staged a fake christian protest, christians REALLY DO PROTEST GAMES LIKE THAT. So I find their outrage a bit on the hypocritical side.
As far as the woman being offended by a "win a date with a booth babe" promotion... I can't honestly say how that's offensive in the least. She needn't partake in the promo, and quite frankly, a lot of people would like a date with some of them. I wonder if she's also offended by shows like the Bachelor or More to Love (win a marriage with a good looking guy, or win a marriage with a fat guy, respectively).
The check thing is another who cares... they're obviously going for a goof, or the editors would have gotten their checks like normal, without EA alerting the media first.
and now that EA has grown a sense of humor, it's kind of tempting. The fake protesters idea is hilarious.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't even notice advertising. I'm a bit interested in this story because of the marketing techniques they're using - I'm not interested at all in their games, btw. With there being so much noise and promotions out there, to get your message across these days you have to resort to things like this.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
If they really do protest games like that, why did EA have to stage one?
Just found out it was nothing but a PR stunt. I was hoping for the free dinner in Vegas. Sadly, now all I have is the memory of having lustfully slept with dozens of beautiful women who work for EA. Rats.
Perhaps considering that EA's stunt caused you to come here and bash Christians their displeasure with EA's stunt is not as baseless and hypocritical as you suggest?
Hypocritical would be EA protesting about something violent (a war perhaps?) that the Christians (hypothetically) agree with and the Christians getting up in arms. I could not, for example,get a bunch of white southern guys, all put black-paint on my face, make a bunch of NAACP banners, and go protest the fictional arrest of some African American while acting acting as offensively stereotypical as possible and then claim African Americans are being "hypocritical" when they get outraged at my stunt.
I wonder if anyone has actually done the research to find out if the old adage 'any publicity is good publicity'.
Marketing seems full of these 'of course it is true!' rules that they never bother to find out if they are actually, well, true. And some of the biggies are not.. for instance, throwing sex into an existing series usually results in a drop of sales/viewers, not a gain.
Then again, they would probably keep doing it anyway. The above example also applies here since even though at this point the numbers are out there and known, many marketers and execs STILL think that sexing something up will lead to larger profits.
I really do not think advertisers actually think through the effects they have.. only how to convince the people above them that they had an effect. Since no one bothers checking, it really just comes down to force of personality and ability to sell yourself to people like you, i.e. your bosses/clients.
If their contest required you to commit acts of lust on ANY booth babe at the event, that is problem. Especially if general workers in those booths got caught up in these lustful acts. Ironic when out of the other side of their mouth they are claiming that the industry needs to clean up it's misogynist ways.
Their marketing ideas worked astoundingly well when measured w/ the "any publicity is good publicity" stick. But if anyone bothered to RTFAs what they have done is morally reprehensible. A bribe is a bribe whether you admit to it and dress it up as a stunt or not. Having people pretend to represent a group they do not is not right either.
Maybe someone should put on an EA polo start passing out free EA games at NAMBLA events so members can pass them on to those they lust after.
I hope no one else follows EA's lead on this or we could be in for some really annoying and offensive "advertising" stunts in the future as the bar will be continually raised.
those who receive the checks do whatever they do with the check WITHOUT REPORTING ON IT IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.
If it doesn't generate press they're going to stop doing it.
I heartily approve of these stunts. In fact, I wish it would happen a lot more.
We have already seen 'astroturfing' being done by political organizations to fake grassroots support for candidates, political parties, and political issues. The more of this blatant abuse we see, the more skeptical the world will be of these fabricated events.
I realize I'm dreaming here, but maybe someday, people will learn to mistrust what they see and hear in the 'media'.
Best regards.
Because they weren't going to protest that particular game, most likely.
'EA has finally decided to simply send editors of prominent gaming sites checks for $200. The point? If the checks are cashed, the gaming press is greedy. If they're not, the gaming press is wasteful.' ..Donate your checks to an art scholarship fund, or some sort of constructive charity/service. No waste, no greed!
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw
What if an editor who received one of those checks just cashed it and immediately ceased writing about any EA product? Forever? (S)he would enjoy monetary benefit and would avoid conflict of interest. Meanwhile, EA would have screwed themselves.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
complaining female and LGBT gamers Wait... why are the "L" and "B" gamers complaining? Can't they win a date with a booth babe too? In fact, if they could just have male and female booth babes, couldn't you make everyone happy?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
No, I bash Christains anyway... because they actually DO protest games, and other things they think are offensive and which NOBODY should have, because their make believe should be forced onto everyone.
Your hypothetical scenario I think backs me up... because while blacks likely would get angry, they'd be rather hypocritical too... there are plenty of black people living relatively close to my house, and I have to say, overall, they really aren't acting in such a way that breaks down the normal stereotypes... if anything, its re-enforcing them.
EA is doing this since... well, I think they are pretty much defined by those methods.
I know that at least five years ago, the German Game magazine Gamestar was the only one not to have a story on some EA game, because they refused to rate it above 90% in order to get access to “exclusive” images etc. I think they even wrote about how EA offered them a pre-written “test” to print practically verbatim.
But this is not the only area where they are shady. If you remember the lawsuit, where the wives of EA programmers (or should I say “code monkeys”) sued EA, because their men never came home. Apparently, the internal rule was, to work until at least 8 PM, and never have free weekends or ask for holidays. If you would go home on the weekend, your boss would tell you, not to ever come back.
I also remember that everybody from Bullfrog (don’t dare to not remember them! ^^) quit the company, to found a new one, as soon as they were bought by EA. That company was again bought by EA. And that time, still 60% of the employees did quit on the spot.
Then their whole process of making games — from my perspective as a game designer — is just disgusting. It’s just like those Hollywood plastic fantastic default movies with ten writers. To them it’s just a production process. No heart, no soul, no free creativity. You just create a mass-product. Never a piece of art, how it should be. They are an insult to the whole business, dragging the reputation of us all down with them.
Now you’ve got an image of what kind of company EA is. Microsoft’s ethics are a freakin’ joke, compared to EA’s.
I wish I would be exaggerating.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
ScuttleMonkey must have cashed his check!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
In all fairness, Christian protesters were crazy well before EA falsely implicated them in this instance. They've protested lesser things. Remember kids, not all Christians are the same. Just as not all Atheists are, either.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
As a general rule, the level of fun is directly proportional to how much it pisses off fundamentalists. Reminds me of a sign in a Nevada road-pub: "Eat, drink, and be merry[1]; for tomorrow you'll be in Utah".
[1] "be Mary" for you crossdressers out there.
Table-ized A.I.
No, I'll bash these politicized christian groups regardless. They have almost single handedly destroyed the videogame and comic book industries with their censorship campaigns and political connections. What we need is less "think of the children" hysterics and more challenging and interesting art. Thie politically correct nonsense only hurts us all in the long run. Kids will eventually be exposed to naughty words and adult situations. We adults shouldnt be paying the price for the lack of parenting skills in the US.
EA gave them a little taste of their own medicine. Big deal.
I went to the game's site to take a look.. and being honest it is VERY rare for me to pay attention to adverts of any kind.. Well played EA (that's likely the only compliment you'll get from me)
The Christians are just pissed that their "moral" outrage seems to so consistently coincide with extremely popular titles.
So much so, in fact that marketing firms are now going so far as to stage 'faux Christian outrage' in the hopes that the outrage itself is the thing that contributes to the hits. This of course must be very annoying for the Christians who were hoping that the world was actually listening to what they were saying. It turns out that marketing departments haven't really been listening to the Christians at all, but instead -- happily noting the simultaneous occurance of increased revenues with the angry mobs of yammering Christians.
Which is as it should be of course. Trying to ram one's morality down the throats of others is generally regarded as poor form.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
donate the amount to charity in your name and drop EA a note to say thank-you :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage.
Submitter and the editor didn't actually see the ironic thing here?
FTFA:
No matter how upset a few groups may get, this has been a successful way to market the game; we're very much aware we're falling into the trap ourselves. The question is a simple one: are we sinking to EA's level, or is it the other way around?
But you know, no need to read the article on slashdot or anything...
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
The mind boggles. Do you seriously believe that because some Christians are vocal all Christians agree with them? Or that because some black people behave like stereotypes that it's fair to say that all black people are like that?
As far as the woman being offended by a "win a date with a booth babe" promotion... I can't honestly say how that's offensive in the least. She needn't partake in the promo, and quite frankly, a lot of people would like a date with some of them. I wonder if she's also offended by shows like the Bachelor or More to Love (win a marriage with a good looking guy, or win a marriage with a fat guy, respectively).
There are game shows about hooking up with rich or attractive or whatever men, and reciprocal shows where the "prizes" are women. They're separate games, with different audiences. Some folks find them all pretty disgusting. You want to talk about making a mockery of the institution of marriage, leave Massachusetts alone... just look up the Bachelor(ette) et al.
There wasn't a "win a date with a booth stud" option. As has historically been the case, they chose to objectify ONLY women, not attractive people in general. I remember when I first started playing EQ, and it struck me that the female characters started off in thongs and pasties, but the male characters at MOST bared their chests under an open smock. Maybe there was one race that had shirtless guys. But it's supposed to be UNDERWEAR, folks... how about a loincloth? What, it's only okay to display naked women? Why? Because guys think it's "gay" if there are naked men? How are the female players supposed to feel about the scantily-clad women models? Nice double-standard you got there. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it, you know?
More and more women are spending more and more money on games these days. It results in more men spending money on them too, because girlfriends and wives who game are far more tolerant of the men in their lives doing so; one no longer has to choose between computer games and getting laid. The way they implemented this promotion sent a distinct message that they really weren't interested in that segment of the business, though. It's short-sighted and narrow-minded.
In comparison, when I walk into a store and see a "god bless america" sign or some such, I often walk right out again. Maybe it gets them more business from the ~70% of the population that believes in a god that doesn't mind having his name used for commercial ventures, but it clearly tells me, as an atheist, that they don't want my god-forsaken money. Why would you narrow your market like that, unless you really WANTED to? A Christian bookstore has no need to worry about offending non-Christians, but for the rest of the world, it's just hobbling yourself.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
[off topic rant]
Could somebody in charge of this site please read a book on programming and then fix the site. I can't stay logged in half the time in any browser and pretty much nothing works right under IE. (And no you can't play this "IE doesn't support standards" card. This site fails validation.)
[/off topic rant]
I have no problem with staying logged in, and most everything works fine for me (mostly using Chrome on Windows XP). But one day, they broke Preview. It no longer shows extra line breaks properly. After you submit, they work fine, but in Preview, all the paragraphs are right together no matter how many times you hit enter, or insert <p> or <br> tags. Sort of defeats the point of Preview.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
They did not blame it on christian groups, other people made that assumption.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Is it actually a problem with anyone that EA pulled off an incredibly clever marketing stunt? Unadulterated evil is pushing the bounds of hyperbole, surely. They are making a game about the Seven Deadly Sins and exploiting Christitan groups and portals of informartion at the same time. Personally I find it brilliant, and it has definetly gotten me hyped about the game. Writing a final on Dante's Inferno in college was one of the most awesome literatry challenges of my life, I can't wait to see someone attempt to take it past the written medium into the interactive, it was impossible enough to work as a play! I wonder how they are going to go after the others? Pride, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Wrath, Envy, and Gluttony. Hiring beautiful women to attend parties for their CEOs? The possibilities here are ENDLESS. I would love to be handed a slate this large to market. I am also curious if they have the balls to include modern figures in their depection of the punishments in Hell? So many possibilities for endless enjoyment!
E - A - Sports - It's in the mail
How is sending those cheques shady? They didn't ask for a review or a mention on the website in return. Nothing was stopping those people from cashing the cheque and then doing absolutely nothing, or even writing a post on their website (or even just a letter back to EA) like so: "I received a cheque in the mail today from a company for no reason. I cashed it and bought some groceries. Thanks for the donation to my nutrition needs." The End.
The editor gets some free money without keeping it 'secret' and thus feeling guilty or something, and EA doesn't get the plug they wanted.
Geez people need to learn to laugh. It's only a bribe if you ask for something in return.
Anyone else remember how that company bit the dust in '04?
Hype is only useful in the long run, if there's something worthwhile following it. People have a tendency to get jaded with it rather quickly, too. This is probably going to end up as a lot of money wasted when it comes down to accounting.
that makes no sense. If they(protesters) were organizing it on their own, there would be no need to have anyone affiliated with EA there. The organizers WOULD want a handful of actual christian protesters, because thats who THEY are.
That tells me all I need to know. When I find a game I might be interested in, if I see EA was involved I won't buy it. Fool me once.
The real question is why are all these people getting bent out of shape over the 'commit acts of lust' contest?
Yeah, you are gay, bi, or just some sort of feminist who is offended by anything with a penis. Whatever. The contest is just asking for you to take a picture of yourself with a booth babe. That's it. Take a freaking picture.
Now, last time I checked, a lot of people take pictures of booth babes. in general, its a pretty acceptable practice (except in England, where cameras are only used by terrorists...) that has been going on for years. Now, you can complain that there isn't equal representation of 'booth beefcakes' (or whatever else you might want), but that really has nothing to do with EA's contest, does it? You might be a transgendered feminist lesbian hemaphrodite, all you have to do is stand next to a booth babe and have your picture taken. IS THAT REALLY SO AWFUL?
Pretty much anyone complaining about this PR campaign are idiots in my book.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"Do you seriously believe that because some Christians are vocal all Christians agree with them?"
Of course if you replace Christian with Muslim, then many people do...
It is fascinating to think about the consequences of voluntarily associating with a certain "group". Or what if anything it means.
http://www.unigamesity.com/wp-content/uploads//2009/06/dante-s-inferno-protest.jpg
Look at that image from the actual fake protest, and tell me EA wasn't blaming it on christians.
I can't really comment on the overall sleaziness of this technique without having seen pictures of the booth babes and/or "Lustful acts". Please provide this information so I can wh...er....whine about how outraged I am!
But seriously....how much were they paying these Booth Babes? Sitting there around a bunch of smelly horny nerds that have been encouraged to be even more obnoxious than usual....and having to go out on a date with the most obnoxious one has to be taxing for any woman.
Excuse me, but did the fake protesters ever claim to be part of any specific religious organization or affiliation other than Christian? I don't think EA ever pointed a finger to a Christian organization and said "They did this!" Instead, they admitted it was a sham shortly after, so calm the fuck down.
If anyone slammed a Christian blogger for the protests, then thats just plain dumb - no evidence ever came from EA suggesting that a particular person or party was involved, and my guess would be that many of the people going to the convention found the protesters laughable at best, and didn't go home to comment on Christian sites and blogs about how appalled they were...the smart ones probably even figured out it was a marketing stunt.
leslie lamport wrote latex, which is a macro package
sitting on top of tex.
You are an atheist? God damnit. I'm sorry, what did you say again?
As offensive as they may be, these PR stunts are pretty well thought out... I'm gonna go find out what this game is about now :)
Game press being bribed? As in they are not being bribed enough already?
If certain high-quality traditional game publications and certain bloggers striving for high journalistic standards are to be believed (and I don't entirely buy this, but I say it's highly plausible and probably true to some noticeable extent), game journalism is already getting plenty enough of real bribes, thank you very much, and game publications that just print slightly tweaked press releases and are easily impressed by generous treatment in expos etc. should not need any additional fuel to the fire.
Is it actually possible that this plan is going to backfire and the journalists don't even pause to think why they've been bribed? Would the irony be that they'd just cash it in, write a "buy the game now, yawn" story, and not think about it in the slightest? Would they see this as business as usual, and not as a marketing effort?
But most importantly, will the aforementioned high-standard journalists ask these same questions? Will we ever see truly reformed game journalism all around?
Electronic Arts are the quintessential evil corporation, populated by soulless, commercialistic, bean-counting demoniacs. They might intend these sorts of stunts to be a parody of their public image, but in reality, they're just confirming what we already know.
As rabid as most of the pro-FSF crowd on this site are about Microsoft, that is more or less the way I feel here.
Burn in Hell, EA. Some of us still haven't forgotten what you did to Richard Garriott...or Spore, for that matter.
There is a difference between viral marketing and stupidity, and there is such as thing as bad publicity. The fact that a major player such as EA would rather not only do things morally wrong but piss off major parts of the customer base just to get people's attention shows how desperate they are (and perhaps much of the gaming industry is).
Why is it that whenever some over-sensitive PC-ified professional grievance monger (like everyone at 'gay gamer', a hilarious site that points up their differences to scream about people who point up their differences) sees anything involving women that they don't like, they dismiss it as 'sexist, misogynist, and exploitive'? It seems our standards for these terms have fallen incredibly far when 'winning a date' with someone qualifies, seeing a woman dressed in revealing clothes qualifies, participating in a beauty contest qualifies - what isn't 'sexism, misogyny, and exploitation' to these tiresome people? Surely this whole thing was embarrassingly juvenile. But give the identity politics nonsense a break. Advertising is objectifying and exploitive. That's the whole point.
The mind boggles.
Only for someone that wishes so hard the world really wasn't the way it is that they live in fantasy land. Like you.
Do you seriously believe that because some Christians are vocal all Christians agree with them?
What is that thundering silence? Oh, its the other Christians that aren't saying "hey, THOSE vocal nuts don't speak for us."
Or that because some black people behave like stereotypes that it's fair to say that all black people are like that?
Stereotypes only evolve when a large enough group of people exhibit behavior, which others then pickup on. For the record, 95% of black people I encounter DO fit the stereo type. Just like 95% of the white trash I see have nothing but empty Bud cans in their recycle bin.
Now, when interacting individually, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and hold nothing against them.. at that point I'll judge the individual.