Category: Editorial/Rant

A more formal editorial-style piece of writing, a rant, or anything to do with the big ideas of politics, the arts, and tech.

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A Facebook Message From a Friend

girl geek in green tshirt 'guns don't kill people, magic missiles do'

Image shared via CC on Flickr by Lamazone

I received this, today, from someone I met on a writing course a couple of years ago. I’m glad he shared it with me, and I thought you might be interested in reading it too.

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Hope you’re well. Thought you might like to hear about a bit of a back and forth we’ve been having at work. Feminism-related, and frustrating from our point of view (and probably yours). What with your interest in the topic I thought I’d share the anecdote.

I work in a Creative Advertising Agency, these days, as a Copywriter. One of our accounts is a major retailer (who shall remain nameless). The client is keen boost sales of technology-related stuff to women over the Xmas period, as they see it as an untapped market.

The idea the client came up with was a “Girl Gamer’s Survival Kit” – everything from fancy gaming keyboards/mice to xbox bits and bobs. They wanted us to design three A3 posters to be displayed in their UK stores, advertising the range of products.

Reservations about the name aside, we went out and spoke to any female employees (and occasionally customers) we could find in our local GAME, GameStation, HMV video game sections etc and found out that, without exception, they didn’t give two fucks about things being pink, they just wanted nifty gadgets, cool peripherals… just the standard stuff, really.

With this in mind we went back to the office and designed what we thought was a pretty good campaign. It was chiefly black in colour, shiny – we wanted it to look as ‘bad-ass’ as possible. There was a girl on it, mid-shot, wearing a plain black t-shirt, slightly alternative-looking. But yes. It was awesome.

We then sent it over to the client.

It came back with a one-sentence reply:

“I don’t get what this has to do with girl gamers.”

Over the course of the next few days (with a back and forth conversation between the client and our account managers) the advert gradually became more and more pink. And more and more sexist.

The final poster they’re going with features what looks like a scantily-clad bad CGI Lara Croft-style woman with enormous breasts holding a ray gun or something. It’s pink. As are all of the gadgets on it. Pink X Box controller, pink X box add-ons… everything.

Unfortunately the money only flows one way – and we’re there to do what the client asks us to. We can argue with it and fight our corner, but ultimately the advertising industry is subservient to the clients who foot the bill; and their fear of change.

I just wanted to write and say sorry.

We tried our best.

Luke

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How do we send a message that we’re more than tits and pink? Is it time for some kind of petition? Some kind of ‘girl gamer’ movement that can raise its voice loud enough that the advertisers listen?

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I Didn’t Applaud, Was That Right?

google search for iran girl shot back

I am so tired at the moment. I am so tired of being angry, of feeling each stupid, ill-thought-out, privileged and destructive decision of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition hit me like a punch to the stomach. Have you ever been punched in the stomach? I haven’t, I spoke to someone who has though, and I think it’s an adequate metaphor.

I went to see Tim Crouch’s The Author, today. I had tried to avoid reading details about it, all that I knew was that it was an interactive-ish play with two lines of audience facing one another, and that it was about writing, and accountability. I also knew people had walked out, fainted, thrown things in reaction to it.

And I was apprehensive. I was apprehensive about doing it wrong, it wasn’t clear how much of it was a script, and how much of it wanted audience input. I knew that it asked for some, but had also read one of the performers bemoaning ‘wrong’ interruptions.

I was also angry. And tired. Which I normally am these days. And I knew that if someone stood up and tried to imply that I did not hold myself accountable to the world, to all that people do to other people, that I did anything other than spend every second I am not (and also some that I am) trying to earn a living or make art; protesting, writing, coding and shouting about the wrong in the world, I would react with violence. Like the image of the Millbank protester kicking the window. I would speak out of turn, and shatter their words.

“I looked at the performers on the stage and I saw that they had imagined me, badly”*

I sat down. The door closed. And as @danrebellato said, it was cleverer than that. It asked you to lean towards it, but it didn’t exploit.

It described some shocking things. But not with the aim To Shock, rather with the aim To Show. Shocking if you have never forced yourself to look, certainly. But it also talked about what looking means.

Here’s something about me: I have never, and will never purposefully watch a youtube video or recording of someone dying. I won’t even watch people breaking bones, or hitting a hard bail whilst skateboarding. Might not sound unusual to some of you, but for most people my age it I am an anomaly. It’s not that I don’t admit the horror or the pain, but rather that I won’t abuse someone’s embodied life by cheapening their death or injury with disembodied mimesis.

This person is not a symbol of the Iran riots, this woman is called Neda, and she is dying, bleeding to death, struggling to breathe, suffocating. She’s not 500,000 google hits. Continue reading I Didn’t Applaud, Was That Right?