A former Arizona pastor named Joshua Feuerstein was angry that Starbucks' Christmas cups this year have no recognizable holiday motif with the exception of the colour red. He is also angry that (according to him) Starbucks employees are forbidden to use the phrase "Merry Christmas."
Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus ... SO I PRANKED THEM ... and they HATE IT!!!! #share
Use #MERRYCHRISTMASSTARBUCKS
Follow --> Joshua Feuerstein
Posted by Joshua Feuerstein on Thursday, November 5, 2015
Not too bright, this fellow. But his post has been viewed more than 10 million times, and shared almost 400,000 times.
Which is really good for Starbucks.
After all, people will have to buy a Starbucks coffee to be able to pull off this "prank." Depending on the demographics of Mr. Feuerstein's followers, some might even be new customers. It's the exact opposite of a boycott, and the baristas will probably be mildly amused.
That is, as long as people don't bring their guns. That's just asinine.
The Columbus, Georgia, Ledger-Enquirer reports that this billboard was placed by Life Saver Ministries, a Christian organization that promises "to reach the weakest and the forgotten, the 'at risk' children from the roughest areas," apparently with the wisdom of Adolph Hitler as well as Proverbs 22:6.
The billboard went up last Friday in Auburn, Alabama, and has since been removed. "We are pulling the billboard and certainly never intended to cause confusion," Life Saver Ministries founder James Anderegg told the Ledger-Enquirer. "Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, 'Children are our most valuable resource. We are a children’s organization and had honorable intentions and nothing less."
This ad, credited to Jung von Matt, doesn't even make any sense. A bottle of beer makes other people angry at you? What?
Plus, I wonder why International Blue Cross (not the American insurance providers, but a group of "independent, non-denominational Christian organisations") would take such a zero-tolerance attitude towards something that most people use without problems.
Apparently, getting people to censor your work for offending religious sensibilities isn't just a young man's (or woman's) game. At the ripe old age of 66, David Bowie has managed another PR coup by having the latest video release from The Next Day get pulled by YouTube for an apparent violation of its Terms of Service.
Sky News reports that the video, directed by Floria Sigismondi and featuring Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard, was yanked yesterday—the very day it was released.
Sky's description is as good as any:
It depicts Cotillard - the French actress who won an Oscar for her role in La Vie En Rose - as a dancing girl who bleeds from stigmata marks on her palms, while Bowie plays a Jesus-like figure in robes fronting his band in a seedy basement bar.
Oldman plays a priest who dances with Cotillard. As she sinks to the floor bleeding from her hands, Oldman turns to Bowie - dressed in what appear to be sackcloth robes - shouting: "You see this? This is your doing - you call yourself a prophet?"
Cotillard's wounds spray blood all over a topless, veiled woman before she rises again dressed in black with tears on her cheeks and bathed in light. The video also includes a monk being flogged.
Most coverage assumes that the religious imagery is the cause of the ban. But I hope not. Showing priests, nuns, bishops and saints as grotesque parodies or sinners is an artistic tradition going back to the middle ages. And Bowie has been a "Leper Messiah" since 1972. You can't say there's not art to this.
YouTube apparently hasn't commented on the issue, but I'll bet it was one of two things:
1) They got so many user complaints that the video was "abuse" that they automatically took it down until it could be reviewed, and/or
2) It was the mostly-exposed breasts being sprayed with stigmata blood (which might explain the age restriction)
(They have since commented. Via Pitchfork: Billboard reports that a YouTube spokesperson told them, "With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it's brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.")
Nonetheless, this is just the latest in what has been one of the most impressive publicity campaigns for a comeback album that I have ever seen. First, David Bowie managed to record the entire album entirely in secret, releasing the first single as a video on the stroke of midnight on his 66th birthday. This generated massive interest for the album, which was not due to come out for two months. He then pre-released his second video single, a song of a very different genre, which seemingly paid homage to an internet meme that he and Tilda Swinton are the same person. The album cover caused gasps in the design world for being just a re-hash of the "Heroes" cover with a white square over the face. And the artist has avoided giving interviews, instead leaving the press access to his band, his producer, and even his wife's Twitter feed.
As a result, his official Facebook page says The Next Day is David Bowie's most popular album since Let's Dance.
And David Bowie is the most interesting and relavant he has been since the Seventies.
When I was writing a post for Osocio this morning, about a campaign for Reporters Without Borders, I briefly visited the McCann, Germany, site to see if there was a version in original language. Instead, I was treated to a rather ballsy image show that portrayed the account team advising Jesus on his brand symbolism.
It's a very funny in-joke for admen, the client picking the entirely wrong approach, while the agency folk desperately try to steer him in the recommended direction. (To take it too literally, though, why would they even have shown him the square and the circles? And isn't he choosing the instrument of his death?)
Put this one down to European humour. Hopefully, offended Christians won't react as violently as some of their Muslim brethren have to recent religious ridicule.
The other image in the series features Fidel Castro and his iconic cigar:
Ironically, the Cuban leader stopped smoking them in the 1980s, due to health. And he actually enacted some pretty strong smoking bans in Cuba before his retirement. But I get what they're saying.
This is edgy stuff, and the over-the-top arrogance plays as a gag. But does it make good business sense for the global advertising brand? I guess we'll see.
Update: Adland's Åsk Wäppling informs me that this stunt is actually eight years old. I guess they still like it.
Jezebel shared the news about a pro-abstinence/anti-birth-control group called 1flesh. Styling itself as a grassroots organization, it uses youth-friendly graphics and messaging to celebrate the joys of procreative marital sex:
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At the same time, it preaches some potentially misleading arguments about the efficacy of contraceptives in preventing unplanned pregnancy and disease:
What is going on here? It's almost like they're trying to run a white, christian, breeding program. Which is a pretty smart strategy from a political point of view. Get those horny kids to keep their pants on until marriage, then turn the young woman's reproductive parts into a baby factory — a clown car, if you will — of Duggar proportions.
The whole “Save the World: Don’t Have Kids” idea is, in retrospect, just plain silly. The worldwide fertility rate fell throughout the same period... Even if we were to pretend that the world was in a desperate state of looming overpopulation, artificial contraception on its own wouldn’t be of much use. It does not reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies. We’ve been duped into demanding a bad solution to a non-existent problem. It’s time to move on.
The effectiveness of the CrMS, as of most forms of birth control, can be assessed two ways. Perfect use or method effectiveness rates only include people who follow all observational rules, correctly identify the fertile phase, and refrain from unprotected intercourse on days identified as fertile. Actual use, or typical use effectiveness rates are of all women intending to avoid pregnancy by using CrMS, including those who fail to meet the "perfect use" criteria.
The Pope Paul VI Institute reports a perfect-use effectiveness rate of 99.5% in the first year.In clinical studies of the CrMS conducted at the Pope Paul VI Institute, researchers excluded most pregnancies from the typical-use rate calculation, on the grounds that they believed the affected couples had used the method to deliberately attempt pregnancy. The Institute reports a typical-use effectiveness of 96.8% in the first year. Most studies of similar systems do not exclude such pregnancies from the typical-use failure rate.
The condom’s use-effectiveness rate is 85%. This means that, under real-world conditions, a woman whose sexual partners use condoms for every act of sexual intercourse has a 15% chance of becoming pregnant in a year. And while oral contraceptives are more effective, studies have shown that after three years of use, the failure rates of oral contraceptives was 4.7% for 24-day regimen pills and 6.7% for 21-day regimen pills. The FDA’s conclusion is that the use-effectiveness of oral contraceptives is 95%. A 2011 study, Contraceptive failure in the United States, found the Pill’s actual failure rate to be 9%.
Though the numbers shift in various studies, in every case, natural methods of family planning — specifically the Creighton Model FertilityCare System — are more effective at preventing unintended pregnancies, with a use-effectiveness of 96.8-98%. The idea that the widespread use of artificial contraception will help end the stressful incidence of unintended pregnancy — while hopeful — has been debunked. The answer is not pill or a rubber. It’s having a true understanding of a woman’s body and cooperating with it.
Condom (Male)Typical use: 85% effectivePerfect use: 98% effectiveOf every 100 women whose partners use condoms, 15 will become pregnant (with typical use) and 2 will become pregnant with perfect use
The PillTypical use: 92% effectivePerfect use: 99.7% effectiveOf every 100 women who use The Pill, 8 will become pregnant (with typical use) within the first year and less than one will become pregnant with perfect use
Waitaminute. Did they just compare perfect use of their "natural" birth control with "typical use" of condoms and the pill? Yes, yes they did.
When you get to the bottom of it, 1flesh's "grassroots" movement is anything but. It's a highly organized campaign of reproductive misinformation designed to recruit a new generation of social conservative, anti-reproductive choice, voters, using generational mouthpieces like Patheos blogger Marc Barnes to make being quiverfull more palatable to Millennials.
I love this sign in front of Toronto's Jubilee United Church. While I don't believe in god, I sure do believe in my family's sect, The United Church of Canada, and their determination to remain relevant in the secular age through social justice and progressive faith.
Remember last Christmas, when Acart Communications did that Paranormal Activity spoof? We weren't the first to parody the horror franchise, and we won't be the last.
But I don't think anyone will ever make a weirder one than this:
This trailer was made to attract attention to Christian "Comedian*" Rich Praytor's campaign to make his big idea — of combining borrowed interest from Paranormal Activity, Poltergeist and other pop memes, bad jokes, and a morality play about pornography — into a feature film.
Why are we doing a project like this? Because films are not only entertaining but they're also a way to teach people. Society learns their morals and values through music, film and television. Pornography is such a huge problem that simply telling someone how dangerous it is usually doesn't work. You have to tell a compelling story to catch someone's attention and then educate them while they're being entertained.
Praytor promises to let big donors actually take part in the making of the film: For $250, you can "be apart [sic] of a creative brainstorming session with the cast and crew via Skype or in person (transportation not included)"; for $500, they'll name a character after you; for $3500, they'll fly you to Colorado Springs to direct one of four scenes created from your ideas; $5000 gets you the Executive Producer credit.
But the best deal is the $7500 option:
"The director and two actors will travel to your location (continental United States only) for the day and shoot a scene you created. You will also direct the scene and spend the day with the team." The subversive potential of being able to write and direct a scene in a low-budget Christian comedo-horror almost seems worth the money.
*And why did I put "comedian" in quotes?
Here is some of Praytor's earlier Christian comedy gold:
This is the creative that used to be there. Pretty run-of-the-mill sexploitative advertising. ("XXX" is one of Vitaminwater's flavours, according to AdFreak.) But the giant version was posted across from Gallery Church, where a small group of Baptist Biblical literalists worship with Rev. Freddy Wyatt.
Wyatt tells the New York Post that he was "angered and brokenhearted" by the ad, because it "takes something that’s pure and precious and just strips it of its value.”
I assume he's talking about sex. Or maybe specifically female sexuality. I would agree that hypersexualized ads do diminish the awesomeness of real human intimacy, however not all sex is "pure and precious". Sometimes, it's dirty and cheap. (At least, I hear some people are into that.)
Anyway, Rev. Wyatt sent just sent four tweets to Vitaminwater and parent company Coca-Cola, and miraculously the company removed the ad the next day, unintentionally creating a great outdoor conceptual piece honouring the fact that is was Good Friday.
The Rev. was so thrilled that he served Vitaminwater at his next service, even though he couldn't believe heis voice could be so powerful. “Here’s four tweets from a random pastor," he said "and without even a conversation, they took it down.
Even though I think this kind of sex in advertising is unimaginative and somewhat demeaning, I find the knee-jerk censorship surprising too. Considering the money obviously spent on the execution and posting, this must have been a real panic for them. Was Coke afraid of having its brand dragged through the mud by a man of god on Easter weekend? No idea.
It couldn't have been Vitaminwater that did it. These are the same people who did the Jennifer Aniston "Sex Tape" hoax to promote Smartwater and had her pose completely nude in their print ads.
Or maybe they found Jesus. I don't know.
There is a male version of the ad as well, by the way:
The billboard above is a hack, obviously. But Jesus is often used and abused by lazy creatives as an easy way to shock the squares and get attention.
I do not believe in gods, but I do believe Jesus was real. He lived, he promoted a truly revolutionary philosophy of internal personal redemption in an oppressive regime, and as a result was brutally tortured and executed by them.
It's quite a story, even without the addition of coming back from the grave. A human story of vision, empathy, determination and almost unimaginable suffering that we can learn great lessons from. That's why I respect the man, even if I despise some of the hateful bullshit some of his so-called followers do in his name.
I also understand why people mock the divine Jesus that people hold up as an excuse to judge others (oh, the irony!). I just think the real guy on the cross deserves better than to be made the posthumous pitchman for...
Interestingly, the irreverent nature of Jesus ads has resulted in more progressive Christian churches using playful Christ images to promote discussion about their faith:
Angry atheist advertising continues to make other unbelievers look bad. In this case, they started with a valid insight, that some of the worst things ever done to other people used the Bible as justification.
"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts ."
- Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America
In a detailed, educated argument, you could easily use the slavery case against Biblical literalists, including the modern-day oppressors who use it to justify war, sexism and homophobia. But the other side could easily retort that Christians were behind abolition of slavery as well. The religion wasn't the cause of the evil, it was simply used as a justification for it.
This ad brings us a terrible reminder about a crime against humanity — the enslavement of millions of Africans and their descendants to build the agrarian economy in the United States (and elsewhere, including Canada). While it's good to never forget past evils, the image must be terribly hurtful to African Americans of today, and its powerful emotional impact is being co-opted by people who just want to bash religion.
There is really no need for evangelical atheism. It is not an alternative to religion, it is just a lack of it. As I've pointed out many times before, atheist groups do themselves no favours with nasty anti-religion ad campaigns. If anything, they just seem to validate the victim complex of some religious groups, like the fundamentalist Christians who claim they are victims of hate.
Look, guys, we secularists don't need your help. Some of us don't see religious people as deluded bumpkins, but as people with a different point of view. As long as they're not imposing unscientific views in government communications and school curricula why fight faith. It's been around for a long time. Instead, join people of all beliefs in fighting human rights abuses from any source.
The latest amateur video from Day of Purity manages to be even more awkward than the first one, stopping the horny and lovestruck teens from having sex using a sassy African American vernacular.
Huffington Post says that when customers bring in a toy worth $25 or more, Monday through Wednesday, they can get a tattoo or piercing of comparable price in exchange. Guzman said in an interview, "Everybody associates tattoo artists with being criminals, bikers, degenerates — and I'm a believing Christian and I believe what better way to be Christ-like than by giving back."
It's a good point. Strip clubs, tattoo parlours... if Jesus the man were here right now, that's exactly where he would do his ministry: among the very people his more hypocritical followers despise.
Well, how would you react if you were an engaged homeless virgin who just found out she was pregnant?
Vicar Glynn Cardy says the irreverent ad has a serious Christmas message:
"It's real. Christmas is real. It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope. This billboard portrays Mary, Jesus' mother, looking at a home pregnancy test kit revealing that she is pregnant. Regardless of any premonition, that discovery would have been shocking. Mary was unmarried, young, and poor. This pregnancy would shape her future. She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last."
Jezebel writes that American home-improvement chain Lowes has pulled its advertising from TLC's reality show All-American Muslim after complaints from the Florida Family Association.
"All-American Muslim follows the daily lives of five American Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, one of the most established and largest concentrations of American Muslims in the country. Each episode offers an intimate look at customs and celebrations, as well as misconceptions, conflicts, and differences these families face outside and within their own community."
In other words, it is offering a peek beyond the xenophobia, to portray the diverse people behind the faith.
This infuriates the Florida Family Association, who sent out an alert to all their members to e-mail TLC with complaints:
"The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish."
My. Oh. My. Can't you just feel the love of Jesus Christ throbbing in their veins? The FFA's mission statement is to "educate people on what they can do to defend, protect and promote traditional, biblical values." (Apparently, "love thy neighbour" ain't one of these.)
Lowe's gave the lamest excuse ever for giving in to fundamentalist pressure:
"Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance."
Way to go, asshats. Spineless and callous is no way for a brand to go through life.
Predictably, some public figures are calling for a boycott of the cowardly brand, including Democratic Senator Ted Lieu, who is calling for a Christmas boycott of Lowe's. He says, "The show is about what it's like to be a Muslim in America, and it touches on the discrimination they sometimes face. And that kind of discrimination is exactly what's happening here with Lowe's."
