Can social media shaming change behaviour, or is it just Schadenfreude?

I've written quite a bit about how shame is not an ideal motivator in social marketing. But there's another aspect to shame and attempts to influence behaviour that is vigilante — rather than institutional — in nature: public surveillance.

My Osocio colleague Claire shared a Tumblr called "I Hope Your Bag is Comfortable, Asshole" that attempts to shame Toronto public transit riders out of the cardinal sin of avoiding a seat mate on a  full bus or train by blocking the empty seat beside them with a bag.

It's an interesting strategy, although I'm not sure it will work. Not just because of legal and privacy concerns, but also because it seems more like revenge punishment than rehabilitation.

This is just one of many name-and-shame Tumblrs. Public Shaming documents awful Twitter reactions to the Steubenville rape case. Hello There, Racists! documents another type of hate.

But is taking pictures of people in public to shame them fair, or even legal?

It brings to mind the case of Adria Richards, the "Company Evangelist" for SendGrid who tweeted a photo of two men at a PyCon conference to out them for sexist public comments. Not only were they fired, but she was too. The company said in a release, "Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line. Publicly shaming the offenders – and bystanders – was not the appropriate way to handle the situation."

The big problem with photos, as opposed to Tweets, is that Twitter is a public medium. Information shared is deliberate, and the statement stands alone without need of context (or, if a response, is attached to the context.) A photo can tell a skewed story, because it lacks context.

The hope is that, to avoid being busted in this way by social media vigilantes, people will behave better in public. But is the answer to minor social ills really to be found in spying on each other?

Weight loss ads appear on pro-anorexia Tumblr posts

Buzzfeed is a funny place. Although still dominated by lazily-recycled content, it is continuing to build a reasonable stable of actual writers doing interesting work.

Staff writer Katie Notopoulos recently discovered a disturbing connection between "Pro-Ana" Tumblr posts (where anorexia sufferers proudly share their emaciated pictures) and targeted ads for a diet program.

It turns out that these keyword-targeted ads point to FatLossFactor.com. Ms. Notopoulos notes that they appear to be targeting the words "thinspo" (short for "thin-spiration") and "starve":

The ads are targeted by someone with an intimate knowledge of how the pro-ana Tumblr community works, exploiting the types of tags popular among young women encouraging one another in eating disorders, and targeting the ultra-thin images they find most appealing. In many instances, the ads are reblogged by others in the community, amplifying the ad’s message further. 

She also found FatLossFactor.com ads linked to the keyword “scars”:

Eating disorders and the direct self-harm of "cutting" are often linked, and are believed to stem from the same types of anxiety.

When contacted by Buzzfeed, FatLossFactor.com founder insisted he was not knowingly involved in placing the pro-ana ads for his products, and said he had instructed his vendor to "blacklist the affiliate" when he learned of the campaign. (However, he added that it was not possible for him to determine the identity of the affiliate based on the information he had.) The ads were placed by third parties using the ClickBank affiliate network.

This isn't the first time social media ads have shown up on pro-anorexia posts. In another Buzzfeed staff post, Amy Odell discovered that by purchasing the keywords "thigh" and "Gap" on Twitter (the latter presumably to stick it to the competition) Levi's accidentally endorsed a bunch of Pro-Ana "thigh gap" posts:

Internet advertising can be a sketchy business.

Famous photos defeminized for IKEA's Saudi market

Thanks to an overly culturally "sensitive" editor who photoshopped all adult women out of the Saudi version of their catalogue, the IKEA brand has taken quite a hit this week.

And the hits keep coming. The latest salvo is a Tumblr in which users share pictures in which iconinc women have been replaced by IKEA products:

Another example of how brands are in the hands of the masses these day. IKEA will no doubt recover, but their willingness to throw toss aside the brand's human rights "values," just to expand the business into an area that does not share them, is an albatross they will have to bear until they truly redeem themselves.

UPDATE: People have been asking me how IKEA could have handled this differently, without offending Saudi sensitivities about female modesty.

Are you listening, IKEA? This is a freebee:

For countries in which the portrayal of casually-dressed westerners is not the cultural norm, shoot your catalogues as furniture-only. This will incur a slightly higher photo shoot cost, but might have some significant savings in talent fees.

Add a disclaimer to the catalogue:

IKEA respects sensitivities towards modesty and western modes of dress in some cultures. However, we are a company that believes absolutely in sexual equality. For that reason, we have produced a catalogue for some regions that shows only product. Because we cannot, as an equal opportunity company, treat men and women differently.

Tip via Copyranter

Punderwhelming social marketing of the week

Wiener dog, wiener bun, wiener as penis. This ad for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (found, of all places, on naughty photog Terry Richardson's Tumblr) is a triple threat.

Terry, I hope you posted it as a reminder to yourself. Only you know where that thing has been.

"Depressed Copywriter" is actually hilarious

It's a new advertising Tumblr. And some of the posts are depressingly funny:

It's like he or she is posting from inside every burnt out Copywriter's poundingly hung over mind.

Check out the whole psychological mess here.

Via Copyranter

@StoddenDrawn visualizes @CourtneyStodden's Tweets

No sooner did I lower my blogging standards with a post about Courtney Stodden than I got a Tweet from a guy who told introduced himself thusly:

This is what I love about our modern communication culture. Not only can a teenager, who marries a man in his fifties for publicity, become internet famous — but some anonymous wag with coloured pencils and a scanner can also make her bizarre alliterative Tweets into art.

Drawn Stodden Tweets is a Tumblr that documents the "best" of Ms. Stodden's ramblings with crudely-drawn literal visualizations.

Here is his explanation:

"I draw some of the weirdness that Courtney Stodden tweets.  Follow on the Titillating Twitter: @StoddenDrawn You can ask me anything. I'll try and answer it like Courtney (i.e. I'll be hopped up on tanning lotion, meth and glitter)"

He even documents her occasional lapses into being a "good Christian":

Cheap shots on an easy target? Sure. But at least it's creative.

The saddest Tumblr of all time

LIVE! (I see dead people) photoshops classic album covers to edit out the dead guys.

The result is depressing as hell.

That's it. I can't take any more.

F'd Ad Fridays: It's agency Christmas party season

Well, it's not actually like this where I work. But we're not that traditional.

Via The End Days of Advertising

American Apparel's "Next Big Thing" is obviously not "growing a pair"

Last month, American Apparel impressed nobody when it launched it's "Next Big Thing" model search for plus-sized amateur porn fashion models.

But then it got good. Nancy Upton, a size 12 model with a wicked sense of humour, entered the following pictures in an attempt to lampoon the contest with the disclaimer, "my good friend Shannon Skloss came over to take some "booty-full" photos of me... but I just couldn't stop eating."

Nancy, in a public tribute to her awsomeness, won the contest by popular vote. But AA refused to crown her as their new booty queen. More than that, they responded with the following insufferable whine:

Dear Nancy Upton,

My name is Iris Alonzo and I am a Creative Director at American Apparel. Along with four other women, I conceived of the Next BIG Thing campaign for American Apparel. Firstly, we are very sorry that we offended you. Our only motive was to discover and celebrate the many beautiful XL women around the globe who enjoy our brand, and to promote the recent size additions to our collection. Nothing more, nothing less. We would also like to assure you that no one is getting fired over your stunt, as you expressed concern about in a recent interview. We are fortunate to have a great boss who trusts and believes in our instincts and ideas, and we are still very excited about all of our Next BIG Things and looking forward to meeting our new XL brand ambassadors.

It’s a shame that your project attempts to discredit the positive intentions of our challenge based on your personal distaste for our use of light-hearted language, and that “bootylicous” was too much for you to handle. While we may be a bit TOO inspired by Beyoncé, and do have a tendency to occasionally go pun-crazy, we try not to take ourselves too seriously around here. I wonder if you had taken just a moment to imagine that this campaign could actually be well intentioned, and that my team and I are not out to offend and insult women, would you have still behaved in the same way, mocking the confident and excited participants who put themselves out there? Maybe you’ll find it interesting that in addition to simply responding to customer demand and feedback, when you’re a vertically-integrated company, actual jobs are created from new size additions. In this case, for the XL women who will model them, industrial workers that make them, retail employees that sell them and beyond. That’s the amazing reality of American Apparel’s business.

Though I could spend hours responding to your accusations and assumptions, this isn’t the appropriate forum for that, so I will only briefly address a few issues here. In regards to April Flores’ “that’s not our demographic” experience, I don’t recall the name of the confused employee credited with saying that, but he or she was sadly uninformed, and our company certainly does not endorse their statement. For as long as I can remember, we have offered sizes up to 3XL in our basic styles, and as far as adding larger sizes to the rest of our line is concerned, if there is the demand and manufacturing power to support it, we’re always game. There are thousands of brands in the market who have no intention of supporting natural - and completely normal - full-figured women, and American Apparel is making a conscious effort to change that, both with our models and our line. If every brand that tried to do this was met with such negative press, we may have to wait another decade for the mainstream to embrace something so simple.

In the past, American Apparel has been targeted for various reasons, many times by journalists who weren’t willing to go the extra mile to even visit the factory or meet the people in charge. Dov is a great executive director and American Industrialist, but there are hundreds of other decision-makers in our company, over half of whom are women. I suppose you have read a few too many negative pieces about us that have helped to form your opinion of who we are and what we stand for, and perhaps this has clouded your ability to give us a chance. I get it. I read some of it too. As a creative who isn’t always the most tactful and tends to stay away from the limelight, maybe I haven’t spoken up as much as I should have over the past 8 years that I’ve worked at American Apparel. Perhaps I could have shed some light on some issues that have been left cloudy over the years. However, sensational media will always need something to latch on to and success, spandex and individuality (and mutton chops circa 2004) are certainly easy targets. And who knows - maybe the PR ups and downs are all part of our DNA as a company. What I do know is that after all the years I have been working for this company I can wholeheartedly say that American Apparel is an amazing and inspiring place to work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can represent of a ton of people I know when I say that we really like Dov and we passionately believe in his vision for a beautiful factory with sustainable practices. We are the largest sewing factory in North America, after all…10,000 jobs is nothing to sniff at. A lot of people would be very sad if this company wasn’t around.

That said, we realize that we are in no way perfect and that we’re still learning. We want to do better or differently in many areas, and we are actively working on them every day. You’re literally witnessing a transparent, sincere, innovative, creative company go through puberty in the spotlight of modern media. It’s not easy!

Oh - and regarding winning the contest, while you were clearly the popular choice, we have decided to award the prizes to other contestants that we feel truly exemplify the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company.

Please feel free to contact me directly anytime. If you want to know the real scoop about our company before writing a story, I’ve got it (or if I don’t, I can put you in touch with the person that does!).

Best of luck,

Iris Alonzo
Creative Director
American Apparel

PS: You suck.

Can Vancouver redeem itself through crowdnarcing?

Last night's Stanley Cup Loser Riot in Vancouver was a black eye for the city and the team. But there are many in Vancouver who refuse to let their reputation be destroyed by a few assholes. So they decided to out the troublemakers on social media.

"Vancouver 2011 Riot Criminal List" is a collaborative Tumblr photoblog that asks riot witnesses to post photos of people they saw engaged in violence and property damage last night.

It has graphic pictures of guys beating up on other guys, people smashing stuff, and drunken idiots celebrating the chaos.

The Vancouver Police, no doubt, are happy to get so much evidence handed to them. And these idiots really do deserve to be prosecuted.

But it's also wierd to remind yourself that, despite the paranoia of conspiracy theorists, it is not "the government" but rather the actions of cameraphone-carrying concerned citizens that have made sure no place on Earth is hidden from observation, documentation, and publishing.

We have met Big Brother, my friends. And he is us.

Via Mashable

@peanutweeter and the age of recycled culture

I don't know what it says about us as a civilization that most of our popular culture consists of homages, reboots and mashups. We don't seem to be living in an era of incredible originality, like ancient Greece. It's more of an age of assimilating everyone else's ideas, like ancient Rome.

In addition to recycling culture, though, we've made it more disposable. Funny memes get passed around for a few weeks and are forgotten. Or they mutate beyond all recognition. Either way, they are not built to last.

The new (to me) image blog, Peanutweeter, is an excellent example of cultural recycling. It re-uses classic panels by Charles M. Shultz, with their timeless social commentary, and replaces the talk bubbles with the ultimate in disposable communication, out-of-context Tweets.

The result is the funniest comic book hack since Garfield Minus Garfield. The Peanuts Gang's philosophical musings and sometime nihilist humour match perfectly with the vacuous, drunken, and self-important 140-character-or-less musings of the least silent generation ever.

 

As one anonymous visitor to the site wrote, "Somewhere, in a corner of Heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing....Charles Shultz has fired up his Mac at the local internet cafe and stumbled upon this website. I'd like to think he's laughing and crying and smiling through the tears of laughter."

And so, in closing, I think this Tumblr is awesome.

See the rest of the Peanutweets here.