Nobody on the right was freaking out about M&Ms. At most they were mocking Mars for bending the knee to the woke mob who almost certainly goaded them into making this switch. Given that you are a comedy writer you should know the left is usually unaware when it is being mocked and trolled.
If you want to talk about a OMG freakout, look at sports media's conniption over Flyers Defenseman Ivan Provorov for refusing to wear a Pride jersey. The sports media leans uniformly left and they were beside themselves. One was screeching for Philly to be fined a million dollars, and another suggested that Provorov leave the US and go fight in Ukraine. Nearly all agreed it was offensive.
Is that what the left has come to? It isn't enough to mind your own business and go your merry way. If you don't openly and enthusiastically support the LGBTQ cause hard enough, you are homophobic and transphobic?
You want to see the cultural fault line, there it is.
And before you complain about false equivalence, the left has the mainstream media, hollywood, madison avenue, K-12 education and the administrative state pushing its version of a woke cultural utopia. The right has Tucker and Ben Shapiro. The OMG reaction of the left and right is like comparing a daisycutter to a firecracker
I thought the freak-out from the right was kinda dumb, but the lack of freak out from the Left is what scares a lot of people. I’d prefer to ignore the culture wars too, but I’ve been raising a boy in this culture and I don’t get why we can’t empower all of our kids. I’m so sick of the girl boss stuff.
Here's what I love about this article: You mock the right for flexing on wokester stupidity and then spend the next three paragraphs explaining how said thing is possibly even dumber than it originally appeared. The side you're defending actively cheers on credible threats of rape and violence against somebody who dare to say that women are female and you blame "right-wing" freak-outs.
I am a liberal and every day I see an example of left-wing stupidity that puts "Pajama Boy" to shame. Gas is 6 bucks a gallon and they're trying to cancel the voice actor from the New Harry Potter game I love your stuff, but I think you may have slipped into "John Oliver Writer" mode here for a second. What sucks is to watch right-wing media once again freaking out and once again realizing that they're 100% more honest than the MSM. #SAD (Sorry about the hashtag, couldn't resist...)
I'm not sure if I'm just too old or just too sane, but I don't understand why suddenly each and every freaking company and brand has to have a "message". I want to buy your shi**y candies just to get some sugar in a tasty form, I'm not going to decide whether I want Mr Pink or Ms slightly translucent, rather brownish, however glittering in direct light, as my president. If I go to a fast food burger chain for a quick meal, I want a burger, not a complex ideological framework served instead of fries. Or are we going to follow this way forever? If you agree with a proposition ABC, come here, if you have objections go eat across the street and if you cannot decide, die hungry you centrist son of a witch!
I understand that these companies feel some kind of necessity to do this - because they are doing it here but not elsewhere. Which is quite funny - they would let flipping candies to discover their identities in US and brag about that (like this would save millions of lives), but the same Mars would keep lips-tight-sealed in countries where this kind of voice could make a real change. This kind of company would make your eyes vomit of their overuse of rainbow themes during pride month in US, but this same kind would join session of searching of ergonomic enough stones for women-for-driving stoning in other countries. Thanks.
Great stuff! I find this congruent with Freddie deBoer's assertion that so many in the left chattering classes "would find it hilarious if you cared about anything". One can find these disagreements deeply stupid, but the inevitable performative turn to the "lol lol nothing matters lol" position is depressingly common.
I also find this to be an appropriately stupid controversy for, as you note, corporations that are desperate to attach moral meaning to their products. You can't just *buy* M&Ms these days; you have to buy a candy that's "flipping the status quo" and "empowering women". For god's sake, can I not just consume my Z-grade chocolate in peace?
Jeff Maurer is awesome. And that was pretty funny too. Amazing insight that one can ignore the wackos on your own side as long as you are hitting the other side.
How serious and lasting is this discontinuation going to be? They said their new spokesperson is Maya Rudolph, so I'm inclined to believe they are high level trolling now.
Honestly, it goes to show how unserious their commitment to social justice is, if they are willing to trash their own campaign to make a few Twitter owns. It's genuinely funny how hysterical Tucker got over the (in his eyes) diminishing fuckibility of the green M&M. You have to be willing to acknowledge the silliness of Mars making a whole goddamn statement about it. I agree with Jeff, the anti-anti woke faction is really keen on ignoring some of the stupid shit coming from the left. We have to be careful not to defend a marketing campaign so stupid that it would've credibly been an SNL skit 4 years ago.
I think it's interesting that right-wing outrage is typically in response to companies "going woke" while the left wing "obsesses over dumb kiddie bullshit" in response to things like George Floyd being murdered.
As you are no doubt aware, the vast majority of female genital mutilation occurs in shithole countries like the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada.
Also male genital mutilation.
In those countries, it's called "gender affirming care".
Fair point. I've been enjoying dunking on the ridiculous "freak out" as well, but there's some perspective here that this was a pretty much unforced error from Mars to begin with in needlessly engaging in "culture wars" to start with. Mars positioned its candy avatars as "SJW" ambassadors and that's what Carlson and the Right were reacting to, the notion that candy cartoons needed to be more "culturally relevant" or something something. Like was anyone really distressed that Ms. Greene was an "inappropriate" image of feminity with her go-go boots? Prolly only someone in their marketing department, responding to nothing the "public" was actually feeling or stating. Did we need an (insulting, btw) reference to "Gen Z" as "anxiety ridden" by making a candy character more "anxious" to appeal to them? A "body positive" (literally all M&M candy characters are apple shaped, so there's that) candy avatar? Like Gen Z has been foregoing M&M's because they haven't "seen themselves" in the candy characters?
It was an unforced error to start with on Mars to feel they needed to engage in "culturally appropriate" messaging with absurd announcing over for a branding campaign few to zero really considered "culturally relevant" to begin with. Love or hate the M&M candy ambassadors but was there an actual marketing demographic that was seeking out those changes to start with, who were withholding their M&M's purchases because they really needed an array of characters that represent the extremely online sect that this botched campaign probably emanated from to begin with? That said, it was still even more stupid of the Right to take the bait, it just looks dumb all around.
FWIW - M&M's still make a delectable add-in to some buttery popcorn : ) (thank you "Mr. Robot" for introducing me to this snacking delight)
>> historically, “united” is the absolute last word that anyone would attach to the left (we love to splinter!).
Political science has a word for this: fissiparous, as in fissile, as in prone to explode, producing great heat and pressure but seldom very much light
Nobody on the right was freaking out about M&Ms. At most they were mocking Mars for bending the knee to the woke mob who almost certainly goaded them into making this switch. Given that you are a comedy writer you should know the left is usually unaware when it is being mocked and trolled.
If you want to talk about a OMG freakout, look at sports media's conniption over Flyers Defenseman Ivan Provorov for refusing to wear a Pride jersey. The sports media leans uniformly left and they were beside themselves. One was screeching for Philly to be fined a million dollars, and another suggested that Provorov leave the US and go fight in Ukraine. Nearly all agreed it was offensive.
Is that what the left has come to? It isn't enough to mind your own business and go your merry way. If you don't openly and enthusiastically support the LGBTQ cause hard enough, you are homophobic and transphobic?
You want to see the cultural fault line, there it is.
And before you complain about false equivalence, the left has the mainstream media, hollywood, madison avenue, K-12 education and the administrative state pushing its version of a woke cultural utopia. The right has Tucker and Ben Shapiro. The OMG reaction of the left and right is like comparing a daisycutter to a firecracker
I thought the freak-out from the right was kinda dumb, but the lack of freak out from the Left is what scares a lot of people. I’d prefer to ignore the culture wars too, but I’ve been raising a boy in this culture and I don’t get why we can’t empower all of our kids. I’m so sick of the girl boss stuff.
Here's what I love about this article: You mock the right for flexing on wokester stupidity and then spend the next three paragraphs explaining how said thing is possibly even dumber than it originally appeared. The side you're defending actively cheers on credible threats of rape and violence against somebody who dare to say that women are female and you blame "right-wing" freak-outs.
I am a liberal and every day I see an example of left-wing stupidity that puts "Pajama Boy" to shame. Gas is 6 bucks a gallon and they're trying to cancel the voice actor from the New Harry Potter game I love your stuff, but I think you may have slipped into "John Oliver Writer" mode here for a second. What sucks is to watch right-wing media once again freaking out and once again realizing that they're 100% more honest than the MSM. #SAD (Sorry about the hashtag, couldn't resist...)
I'm not sure if I'm just too old or just too sane, but I don't understand why suddenly each and every freaking company and brand has to have a "message". I want to buy your shi**y candies just to get some sugar in a tasty form, I'm not going to decide whether I want Mr Pink or Ms slightly translucent, rather brownish, however glittering in direct light, as my president. If I go to a fast food burger chain for a quick meal, I want a burger, not a complex ideological framework served instead of fries. Or are we going to follow this way forever? If you agree with a proposition ABC, come here, if you have objections go eat across the street and if you cannot decide, die hungry you centrist son of a witch!
I understand that these companies feel some kind of necessity to do this - because they are doing it here but not elsewhere. Which is quite funny - they would let flipping candies to discover their identities in US and brag about that (like this would save millions of lives), but the same Mars would keep lips-tight-sealed in countries where this kind of voice could make a real change. This kind of company would make your eyes vomit of their overuse of rainbow themes during pride month in US, but this same kind would join session of searching of ergonomic enough stones for women-for-driving stoning in other countries. Thanks.
Great stuff! I find this congruent with Freddie deBoer's assertion that so many in the left chattering classes "would find it hilarious if you cared about anything". One can find these disagreements deeply stupid, but the inevitable performative turn to the "lol lol nothing matters lol" position is depressingly common.
I also find this to be an appropriately stupid controversy for, as you note, corporations that are desperate to attach moral meaning to their products. You can't just *buy* M&Ms these days; you have to buy a candy that's "flipping the status quo" and "empowering women". For god's sake, can I not just consume my Z-grade chocolate in peace?
I'm just waiting for George Santos to announce that he was the M&M's spokesman in the 2010s.
Jeff Maurer is awesome. And that was pretty funny too. Amazing insight that one can ignore the wackos on your own side as long as you are hitting the other side.
How serious and lasting is this discontinuation going to be? They said their new spokesperson is Maya Rudolph, so I'm inclined to believe they are high level trolling now.
Honestly, it goes to show how unserious their commitment to social justice is, if they are willing to trash their own campaign to make a few Twitter owns. It's genuinely funny how hysterical Tucker got over the (in his eyes) diminishing fuckibility of the green M&M. You have to be willing to acknowledge the silliness of Mars making a whole goddamn statement about it. I agree with Jeff, the anti-anti woke faction is really keen on ignoring some of the stupid shit coming from the left. We have to be careful not to defend a marketing campaign so stupid that it would've credibly been an SNL skit 4 years ago.
I think that you're being unduly charitable in referring to M&Ms as "B-grade" chocolate.
I don’t even like M&M’s. 😁
I think it's interesting that right-wing outrage is typically in response to companies "going woke" while the left wing "obsesses over dumb kiddie bullshit" in response to things like George Floyd being murdered.
This is stupid false equivalence. Do better.
The real .question is, who actually likes M&Ms? Aside from peanut M&Ms, they are absolutely awful. I'd rather eat a Good & Plenty
As you are no doubt aware, the vast majority of female genital mutilation occurs in shithole countries like the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada.
Also male genital mutilation.
In those countries, it's called "gender affirming care".
Fair point. I've been enjoying dunking on the ridiculous "freak out" as well, but there's some perspective here that this was a pretty much unforced error from Mars to begin with in needlessly engaging in "culture wars" to start with. Mars positioned its candy avatars as "SJW" ambassadors and that's what Carlson and the Right were reacting to, the notion that candy cartoons needed to be more "culturally relevant" or something something. Like was anyone really distressed that Ms. Greene was an "inappropriate" image of feminity with her go-go boots? Prolly only someone in their marketing department, responding to nothing the "public" was actually feeling or stating. Did we need an (insulting, btw) reference to "Gen Z" as "anxiety ridden" by making a candy character more "anxious" to appeal to them? A "body positive" (literally all M&M candy characters are apple shaped, so there's that) candy avatar? Like Gen Z has been foregoing M&M's because they haven't "seen themselves" in the candy characters?
It was an unforced error to start with on Mars to feel they needed to engage in "culturally appropriate" messaging with absurd announcing over for a branding campaign few to zero really considered "culturally relevant" to begin with. Love or hate the M&M candy ambassadors but was there an actual marketing demographic that was seeking out those changes to start with, who were withholding their M&M's purchases because they really needed an array of characters that represent the extremely online sect that this botched campaign probably emanated from to begin with? That said, it was still even more stupid of the Right to take the bait, it just looks dumb all around.
FWIW - M&M's still make a delectable add-in to some buttery popcorn : ) (thank you "Mr. Robot" for introducing me to this snacking delight)
>> historically, “united” is the absolute last word that anyone would attach to the left (we love to splinter!).
Political science has a word for this: fissiparous, as in fissile, as in prone to explode, producing great heat and pressure but seldom very much light