Shell's embarrassing, sexist, crowdsourced natural gas ad

I can't believe I almost missed Shell's crowdsourced natural gas campaign. According to i100, the fossil fuels company offered $50,000 for young filmmakers to create "viral videos" to make it look more green.

One of the winners was this ridiculously-twee attempt to pander to Millennials:

It's pretty standard suff. But there's also this:

The ham-fisted parody of French New Wave films is trying to be cute, but assigning renewable energy to a helpless woman in need of a man (played by natural gas) is not exactly helping sexist stereotypes in advertising.

Worse, though: It's awful.

Candie's Foundation gets spanked by activist moms #NoTeenShame

The Candie's Foundation recently launched an anti-teen-pregnancy campaign in which a who's sho of Millennial celebrities  — Hayden Panettiere, Carly Rae Jepson, Hillary Duff, Lea Michelle, Fergie, Vanessa Minillo, Ciara, Teddy Geiger and the band Fall Out Boy — tell teens how much parenthood sucks.

According to Feministing, the campaign has really offended the Strong Families Movement for its shaming approach towards teen pregnancy. Allied blogger Natasha Vianna puts it plainly:

At the age of 17, I gave birth to a little girl. When the Candie's Foundation launched a teen pregnancy prevention campaign with the tagline "You're supposed to be changing the world... not diapers," I was outraged by their attempts to shame young parents. Although I was changing diapers at age 17, I am changing the world – and so are Lisette, Consuela, Jasmin, Gloria, Marylouise, Christina, and so many other young parents like us across the country. Our activism has been shaped by our experiences as young moms; we are working to change the world because we are young parents.

The organization has launched a petition to Candie's and encourages the use of a hashtag, #NoTeenShame, to draw eyes to the cause.

This controversy is similar to what happened when NYC's Human Resources Administration put up ads  in which young children shamed their teen parents about getting pregnant.

The problem lies in the strategy of shame. This is an organization that previously used wealthy teen mom (and born-again abstinence advocate) Bristol Palin as a spokesperson for what a burden young parenthood is. They describe themselves as " a non-profit organization that works to shape the way youth in America think about teen pregnancy and parenthood." 

And sex:

Research has shown that teen girls who have been exposed to the foundation and its messages are more likely to view teen pregnancy and parenthood as stressful and negative, and they are more likely to be skeptical of the media's portrayal of teen pregnancy and parenting. They also think teens should wait longer to have sex than girls who are not aware of the foundation and its messages.

But where does that leave the teens (especially girls) who have become pregnant? Ashamed, if the campaign has its way with them. But even if their own feelings of self-worth are not important to you, do you actually think that teens are unaware of the fact that unplanned pregnancy is a big deal? 

It would be really refreshing to see someone pony up for a pleasure-positive, choice-positive teen sexuality campaign that helped young people get and use contraception without vilifying those who do not, and who decide to have a baby. The Candie's Foundation's pro-abstinence stance reflects a conservative culture of sexual shaming, in which people who consensually give in to their natural curiosities and pleasures are seen as morally weak. (And the shaming can affect victims of rape as well.)

As much as I don't want to be a grandparent too soon, neither would I want to raise my young son to believe that teen parents are lesser people than him. Not only for their sake, but possibly for his own. 

Generation On-Demand

Our business involves a lot of discussion about demographics, to the point at which my coworkers and I tend to see generational differences wherever we look. Our agency is a classic multigenerational crucible: owned by a classic Traditionalist/Silent Generation husband and wife, senior management driven by Boomers, a handful of Gen-X managers struggle with the uncool idea of being bosses, and the Gen-Y/Millennials forming the advancing ranks inspire and shock us with their fast-track world of confidence and entitlement.

But what about the next generation? Today's kids. My son and his ilk.

Nobody will really know how they turn out for another decade or so, as the first ones come of age. (And even then, my own generation was pretty much written off as a bunch of slackers in the early '90s.) But it's still fun to speculate.

As a parent, the biggest change I see in my son's childhood world from my own is the immediacy and customization of it all. He's four years old, and has grown up watching most of his "shows" on DVD, because he likes to watch them over and over again. He struggles with the idea of a TV show, or a song on the radio, that can't be replayed. (We don't have a DVR yet.) Everything is on-demand.

Contrast this with how my wife and I grew up. She used to cry every time Mr. Dressup ended, because she would have to wait a whole day for the next episode. I still recall, after seeing Star Wars in the cinema, spending hours and hours trying to recreate that movie with action figures, comic books, and even record albums. Without TV rights or a video release, I didn't see that movie again in its entirety until the '80s.

But my son will never know the exquisite pain of waiting for the next release, and relishing the memories of a single viewing. He sees everything on-demand.

Of course, this is just entertainment. How much of their "real" life will be on-demand? School will always impose some kind of structure, but even there children today are faced with lesser consequences for misbehaviour, and individualized lesson plans for their diagnosed specialness. Outside of school, overscheduled soccer moms give up their own lives to drive the minivan from activity to activity, totally focussed on their child's personal needs. And many parents (not us, IMHO) even customize their kids' meals, allowing increasing fussiness as they make each plate to order.

There have been plenty of crusty editorials written about the spoiling of the upcoming generation, but every generation provokes those. What I'm wondering is how — for worse and for better — the customized and immediate world of my son's cohort will influence their attitudes as adults.

I can foresee some even more demanding and impatient individuals entering the workforce in another 15 years. Each of them will want an individualized and accelerated career path from day one, making HR a real challenge. At the same time, they may display a kind of individualism and independent thought that we haven't seen before, because they'll be so totally "empowered" (although I hate that word) by a world that was made to fit their needs. But are we in danger of making them the most selfish adults ever? As the world becomes more crowded and stressed, their individualized needs will inevitably bump up against those of billions of others. Let's hope we instill a sense of respect for others in them, as well as self-esteem.

Anyone have other predictions for "Generation On-Demand"? And how will the Millennials complain about them?