I would promise to be more consistent with my blogging this year but I’m trying this new thing of making promises that I can actually keep; I’ll let you know how that works out. Genuinely though, my previous blog was about jumping on the property ladder and damn, you’ll be surprised how a mortgage and household bills can distract you from your day-to-day hobbies! A lump sum leaving your account every month is not something you can easily adjust to. I need someone to look at me the same way my mortgage provider looks at my current account, a match waiting to happen. Anyways, new year, new me and all that jazz so I thought I’d start the year touching upon the light-hearted topic of racism lol. This should be fun aye? I’ve tried to avoid this subject for a while, not exactly something you can drop a couple one-liners about. Saying that though, in this volatile climate, I thought it’ll be good to get those creative juices flowing.
I’m sure you’ve seen the latest controversy doing the rounds, “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”. H&M were accused of racist advertisement after they featured a young black boy modelling a hoodie with that exact slogan. This pic has gone viral and H&M have been highly criticised as a result, prompting them to remove both the ad and the hoodie from sale before issuing an apology. I heard a theory that companies intentionally go out of their way to offend people in order to gain traction. Now I’m not saying I agree with this theory, but I’m also not completely ruling it out. It took me about five seconds to spot that this ad could be a tad insinuating so you’d think a multi-million dollar company with a seemingly highly educated marketing staff could have too right? Welp, wrong! Especially when you live in a world where people are begging to be offended by something, H&M gift-wrapped that one to perfection.
Lemme be real though, I don’t believe H&M intentionally went out of their way to be offensive. *Wait, don’t shoot*. Many people would disagree with that but my faith in humanity hasn’t completely disintegrated. I believe it was a huge c*ck-up which has exposed the lack of diversity within the industry for something like this to go under the radar… something that has also caught my attention though has been people’s responses to the matter. I can’t help but feel this is yet another trend people wanna jump on to make it seem like they care, until a couple days or so later when there’s a new bandwagon to ride – virtual signalling if you may. Sneaking back into H&M during their next Balmain collab as though you weren’t offended five minutes ago. Get outta here bro, don’t make me laugh ma’am, I’m not here for that. I don’t get why you can’t sneeze nowadays without someone having an issue, this fake caring culture really rattles me.
It took me about five seconds to spot that this ad could be a tad insinuating so you’d think a multi-million dollar company with a seemingly highly educated marketing staff could have too right?
Now some people are gonna read this and think I’m downplaying the situation; wrong again! You get no bonus points for being ignorant. H&M took their eye of the ball and should be held accountable as a result. I’m just exhausted by these actors and their Oscar winning performances. These pint-size EastEnders characters doing Phil Mitchell on social media just to be seen to care about worldly issues. Reposting the young boys pic with cringe captions just for a few likes whilst others are even trying to monetise the situation. His mum literally okayed the photos but you wanna be offended on her behalf too. It’s like we’re itching to let everybody know how mad we are lol. Bad news spreads much faster than good so it’s no surprise when I see something like this gather so much pace. I just tend to switch off at times like these, bury my head in the sand for a bit then I’ll see what you guys are fake caring about next.
Joe
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