Last week, an Internet troop by the name of “Warroom” decided to go to war in a room: his bathroom. He intentionally watched a corporate marketing ad and officially got mad online. Warroo stormed the beaches of Twitter by throwing his razor in the toilet, taking a photo, posting it, making a righteous and brave stand against woke advertising. He is the Defender of Men everywhere. (And then probably fished it out of the toilet, because you can’t flush razors. He then most likely rinsed it off, returning the over-priced corporate product to the cabinet.)
Us SJW’s have been visciously owned. Eviscerated, slammed, destroyed! We will be further triggered by the destruction of your purchased goods, MAGA patriots. Please do not do this and document it extensively on social media.
Here’s the ad he shat his pants over:
The main problem with corporate woke advertising is that, underneath all the messaging and soaring music, the aspirational ideas, it’s still just a goddamn ad for expensive disposable razors. It’s a brand attempting to attach themselves to an emergent social movement against toxic masculinity and inappropriate sexual behavior via #MeToo. Irrelevant whether or not this is a cynical attempt to push sales or a serious attempt to begin a necessary conversation, it’s still… just a corporate ad.
(By the way, this is what actual virtue signaling looks like.)
Gillette’s video itself actually has a net good message: that boys learn from example and toxic masculinity thrives in permissive environments. It’s a very well-crafted message, a slick professional production that goes for the greatest hits of bad men: excusing violent behavior, catcalling, poor media representations of women, etc.
However, Gillette’s not even fully committed to the message of their ad, though. Here’s Pankaj Bhalla from Gillette, actively distancing the ad campaign from the idea of “toxic masculinity”:
“We expected debate. Actually a discussion is necessary. If we don’t discuss and don’t talk about it, I don’t think real change will happen,” Pankaj Bhalla, Gillette’s North America brand director, told CNN Business.
“The ad is not about toxic masculinity. It is about men taking more action every day to set the best example for the next generation,” said Bhalla. “This was intended to simply say that the enemy for all of us is inaction.”
The ad is most certainly about toxic masculinity. If not, then what the fuck is it about? Bhalla just doesn’t like the term. Well, too bad. Your ad campaign is about toxic masculinity. Own it. Maybe because the term has been bandied about by activist who want to have a non-corporate funded message about it, that also includes why toxic masculinity is so common in American society.
Toxic masculinity is easy in an environment built on the accumulation of capital being a religion, fetishizes private ownership, and a strict, conservative gender hierarchy that sees domination and cruelty as a necessity for success. Surprise, that’s the main engine of capitalism. Gillette and other social-conscious will always find themselves trapped in this paradox, and while they can broadcast a completely necessary message, that truth is always there under the surface: “Buy our product and you’ll be a good person.”
Corporations always come late to this party, and their attempts to hijack social movements to improve their brand image and push units fail more than succeed. Let’s look at some of the greatest shits of the last few years:
- Starbucks’ “Race Together” campaign where baristas would be asked to talk about race relations in America with customers by writing “Race Together” on a cup. A personal favorite of mine.
- Pepsi’s “Join The Conversation” ad where Kylie Jenner, a white woman, attempted to solve police brutality by handing the pigs some sugar water. So good, I learned a lot!
- Colin Kaepernick’s Nike ad. Whew, buddy.
That last one: glad Colin’s making money, but selling shoes made by slave labor? Come on, dude. Also, the ad doesn’t bother to mention what he believed in and sacrificed everything for. Does that mean if I believe in eugenics and sacrifice everything, I too can be a corporate shoe salesman? Nike also bore the brunt of this brave stance by raking in $3 billion. Fuck off.
The main benefit of the Gillette ad is that it pissed off the right people. The thin-skinned fragile eggmen of the Internet rose up form their gaming chairs because they felt “attacked”. If you watch a 2 min video that says “don’t be a shitty man” and your response is “NOT ALL MEN, THAT’S NOT ME”, guess what? It probably is. Their predictable outrage equals more engagement which equals more sales. Good for Gillette, because their pissy whining is an infinitely renewable resource.
But those man-children aren’t going to listen to corporate advertising that doesn’t have a bikini girl or a gun in it. So who’s it for? It’s an ad for liberals to feel better about themselves, a firm pat on the back for being woke, or give them an opportunity to become 10% more woke by buying a razor. This the state of political discourse in 2019: buying a product makes you good or bad and that can be the extent of your political identity. “I bought all the right stuff.”
Expressing political identity through commodities is the neoliberal wet dream. Also, you can’t sustain a politics of spite against enemies and then have room to say anything meaningful. Liberals who think they’re owning anyone by buying Nikes or Keurig or Costco memberships is basically just playing a virtual signaling game whose only winner is the shareholders of those businesses. (Gillette also charges $3 more for “women’s” razors than men’s, and $1.20 more for “women’s” shaving foam. Gendered products are bullshit, also.)
Corporate wokeness is only possible because of the problem of needing infinite growth in capitalism. They’ve exhausted the market of white people and then making an effort to expand those markets to new groups. Ads like this provide cover for themselves by appealing to a younger, more diverse, more tolerant generation. They can’t go full MAGA because 1: those people are angry and repulsive, and 2: their politics are completely about exclusion, revanchism, and austerity. All bad for a direct consumer business trying to broaden its customer base. Since this overlap exists, woke advertising always finds an audience.
They also do mad numbers because corporations are kind of falsely understood to be apolitical, which of course they are obviously not. They’re just not usually socially progressive in an obvious way. It’s the novelty of a woke campaign that grabs people. So why the fuck is a razor company the acceptable messenger for this?
The most grotesque aspect of this bait-and-switch is the mutation of their slogan: “The Best A Man Can Get” to “The Best A Man Can Be”. Fucking hook this shit up to my veins. The final boss phase of neoliberalism: fully combine the act of buying with political thought, so tightly intertwined they are one and the same. If corporations are the only organizations that have a platform large enough to spread this message, we are seriously fucked.
Capitalism cannot give you a meaningful political message. It will not save the planet. It will not cure sexism because you bought a fucking razor. You may feel better for a millisecond, that clapback might be satisfying in the moment, but it’s always poisoned, undermined by its own consumerist needs.
And unlike Warroom’s razor, capitalism is actually something we can flush down the drain.
Carl Wilhoyte is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His work has appeared in Street Fight Radio, District Sentinel, Abomination Magazine, Bourbon Penn, and Farmhouse Magazine.