PETA is sexually exploiting 16-year-olds now

Via PETA

That's 16-year-old Samia Finnerty, musician and daughter of actress Kathy Najimy, posing provocatively with another dumb double-entendre.

PETA calls her their "youngest pinup" and states:

PETA normally waits until people turn 18 before asking them to star in a "provocative" campaign, but not this time. Sixteen-year-old singer-songwriter Samia Najimy Finnerty stars in our new "Vegans Go All the Way" ad. 

Classy. I also question the social marketing strategy of dissing vegetarians as being some kind of lesser vegans. Way to alienate a large proportion of your base, PETA!

Big changes for teen models in the New York fashion industry

Elle Fanning at 12, 2010 (Steven Pan/Interview, via MTV)

According to Buzzfeed's Amy Odell, there are big changes afoot for New York's fashion industry:

...new legislation proposed by Senate Co-Leader Jeff Klein and State Senate Labor Committee Chairwoman Diane Savino, seeks to close the loophole that excludes print and runway models from the same protections as all other child performers. ... Expanding the definition of child performers to include print and runway models would require young models to have chaperones on set, ensure a portion of their earnings goes into a financial trust, and ensure they don’t miss too much school for work.

Seems like ordinary decency to me, but apparently print and runway models in the state have not been protected by strong labour laws — leading to economic and even sexual exploitation.

Here is more, from The Cut:

Other requirements for employing children under 18: If they miss over three days of school, their employer must provide a tutor and space for them to study. Children under 16 must be accompanied by a chaperone. Can you imagine desks and parents backstage at fashion shows? It sounds unlikely, and enforcement might be tricky, especially since models are commonly considered "independent contractors" rather than employees. But establishing some basic rights for these kids — because they are, in fact, children — should be a priority. The bill could pass as early as next week, posing complications for modeling agencies. Alternatively, they could just cast models over 18, which really wouldn't be so bad.

No, it wouldn't. Let teen models model teen clothing to teens, and let adult women do the adult modelling. Then maybe 20-something fashion victims could stop starving themselves to match the way their clothes hang on pubescent models.

Wellesley college stumbles upon the best enrolment campaign of all time

Via thinkprogress.org

This is Katelyn Campbell. She's a Senior at George Washington High School in Charleston, West Virginia. When conservative speaker Pam Stenzel was invited to her school to speak about abstinence as the only way to avoid pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections, Ms. Campbell refused to attend.

What did she miss? According to Think Progress:

At GW’s assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” She also asserted that condoms aren’t safe, and every instance of sexual contact will lead to a sexually transmitted infection.

Who can blame Ms. Campbell for thinking that has no place in a public school? Especially since it was funded "by a conservative religious organization called 'Believe in West Virginia' and advertised with fliers that proclaimed 'God’s plan for sexual purity'."

But this student did more than boycott the event. She also filed a complaint with the ACLU, and spoke out against the event in her school and in local media.

In a show of retaliation that should make any educator's or parent's blood run cold, George Washington HS Principal George Aulenbacher allegedly decided to try to destroy the teenage girl's future.

According to a complaint filed by the Campbell family's lawyer, asking for an injunction to prohibit Principal Aulenbacher from retaliating against Ms. Campbell for exercising her right to free speech.:

Aulenbacher called Campbell to the principal's office after she contacted media outlets about the assembly and said, "I am disappointed in you" and "How could you go to the press without telling me?" according to the complaint. 

He then allegedly threatened to call Wellesley College, where Campbell has been accepted, and tell them about her actions. "How would you feel if I called your college and told them what bad character you have and what a backstabber you are?" he said, according to the complaint. 

"I said, 'Go ahead,'" Campbell said Monday. "He continued to berate me in his office. I'm not an emotional person, but I cried. He threatened me and my future in order to put forth his own personal agenda and made teachers and students feel they cant speak up because of fear of retaliation."

One can only hope that Mr. Aulenbacher ends up getting his just desserts in some kind of John Hughes movie ending.

Katelyn Campbell, on the other hand, no longer has to worry about Wellesley. They are well aware of her character, and sent her this message, via Twitter:

Katelyn Campbell, #Wellesley is excited to welcome you this fall. bit.ly/13jqRet
— Wellesley College (@Wellesley) April 17, 2013

That's what I call a happy ending. And not only for the young woman who stood up for evidence-based sex education. Wellesley College managed to get the kind of publicity that no amount of marketing money can buy:

WOW. The response is off the charts. Thank you. Our alum community says it best- we think Katelyn will fit right in. chn.ge/ZAj97W
— Wellesley College (@Wellesley) April 18, 2013

Parenting magazine shock advertises with "teen" sexting image (partial nudity)

Don't panic — it's an ad. The models are obviously adults. But is using a titillating image a good idea, even if it's saying "we're against that sort of thing"? It's as if the all-male creative team at Jung von Matt were a little too into this one. As a result, in my opinion, they just end up contributing to the problem of adults fetishizing teen sexuality.

The other two ads in the campaign are also shocking, but for different reasons:

These ads are not designed to sell parenting magazines. They are designed to get attention for the creatives and their agency. Mission... accomplished. You creeps.

Images via Ads of The World

"My Vagina, My Rules" poster is too cool for school

This may be The Year of the Vagina throughout much of the United States, but not at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Animal New York reports that the poster (above), advertising the school’s Progressive Student Awareness club, was swiftly banned after being posted around campus.

Student Brianna Payne was shocked by the censorship, since she had had the posters pre-approved by her teacher, Joseph Kaelin. “He told me that the principal and a couple of the assistant principals saw the posters and they were like, ‘We don’t like them. They’re inappropriate,’” Payne told Animal NY's Andy Cush. “He told me that he agreed with us, and he thought what we were doing was correct, but he couldn’t do anything about it.”

Laura Marquez, Brooklyn Tech's Assistant Principal of Parent and Student Engagement, claims the poster was sensationalist and lacking in useful information. “The poster was passed around to a room of about a dozen administrators, and no person said, ‘Well, you know, lets give them a shot,’" she explained. "Everybody was shaking their heads, or various degrees of annoyed and offended.”

Because "vagina" is a dirty, dirty word. Especially in the context of sexual rights. I can't believe we trust teenage girls to go running around with those things between their legs. Won't someone PLEASE think about the children?

Urban Outfitters' drinking shirts are a very American dilemma

Okay, I kind of made fun of Canadian yokeltude in my last post, but now I get to be smug.

The shirts above are from Urban Outfitters. And people are upset about it.

Here's how Steve Hall at Adrants summarized:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving President Jan Withers told the New York Times, "As a mother, these shirts are not acceptable for children under the age of 21. If they're targeting that audience, then they're sending the message that it's cool to drink. We know of the dangers of underage drinking and the fact that it's just downright illegal." 

With Urban Outfitters customer base mostly 18-24, much of this outrage may be warranted. Is this just harmless fun or does Urban Outfitters need a good spanking?

Is this a good place to mention that making the legal drinking age 21 is fucking ridiculous? At 18, you can vote, go to jail, sign contracts, and go to war. And you are not mature enough to have a goddamn beer?

Admittedly, here in Ontario, we are also inconsistent with age of majority. I would happily vote to have it reduced from 19 to 18 any day, even if it means more DITs (drinkers in training) in the bars.

Frig, I let my 8-year-old son wear a beer logo cap to school, and they didn't even say anything. To be fair, it's in a pretty nice neighbourhood, and rich people drink a lot. Hell, one day I saw a kid's lunch packed in a  reusable liquor store bag.

Anyway, all this to say that these shirts are mostly harmless. Teens wear much worse things than this. Way worse.

If I had a teenage daughter, I wouldn't really mind if she wore the "drinking team" or "vodka" shirts — except that I would question her taste. (The "I drink you're cute" one is sort of funny, but the message isn't the greatest indicator of high standards in men.)

If we want to get up-in-arms about shirts sold by Urban Outfitters, forget MADD's rantings about booze.  I have a much more troublesome from the same catalogue:

It says "no reason to say no." What a bad idea that is.

Then there's this:

Ummm...

"Girls Get Curves" - combining math and body positivism

Danica McKellar  charmed teenage boys in the '80s as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years has grown up to be something of a nerd heartthrob.

Having attained her math degree from UCLA, and coauthoring the paper Percolation and Gibbs State Multiplicity for Ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller Models in Two Dimensions, she went on to author a series of books encouraging young girls to be confident and pursue mathematics: Math Doesn't Suck, Kiss My Math, and Hot X: Algebra Exposed.

Recently, Ms. McKellar published her fourth, Girls Get Curves. This one appears to take on body image issues with her play on words.

It's a weird combination on the cover, though, flaunting her now-mature sexuality and offering advice on attracting "guys" more prominently than she actually pushes math.

Meanwhile, she told BuzzFeed:

People tell us our value lies in our appearance, and that's what we need to focus on instead of realizing hair and makeup and fashion — that's all fun but it's really decoration. It's not where our value lies, and it's not where our self-esteem should come from, because that's extremely damaging. Girls forget that the things that are going to make them feel happy and fulfilled are the things you do from the inside — like succeeding in math. If you look at a really hard math problem, and you persevere and you do solve it, then you build internal fortitude, and you see that you're stronger and smarter.

Ms. McKellar also comments on media and advertising:

In the book I talk about how we can’t compare ourselves to the images in magazines — they’re not real. If you want to aspire to look like somebody, aspire to look like somebody you have in your real life. 

I also have a section about how advertisements are designed to make us feel bad about ourselves, because if we’re not happy about how we look we don’t need their products. So it’s in the advertisers’ best interest to make us look less than. It’s really damaging — it’s damaging to girls and it’s not going to stop. So I’m hoping to give them a different perspective.

I agree. But I would have asked her about how this applies to the spread she did in Maxim.

Might these two sides of the actress/mathematician give girls a mixed message about where their real value lies? I'd love to hear your opinion.

Read the whole interview here.

Salon offers 15-year-olds independence from body hair #FdAdFridays

Freedom and independence from all those icky signs of puberty!

Jezebel shared this special July 4th offer from the Uni K Wax Center, offering 50% body waxing to girls 15 and under.

Because it's never too early to start a lifetime of salon-dependent body anxiety.

Hot Girl Problems

This video is almost certainly a joke. At least I desperately hope it is a joke. Please, tell me it's a joke.

I don't think it's a joke.

If you dare, watch two young girls calling themselves "Double Trouble" (they were obviously born after Stevie Ray Vaugh's death) mumble-rap a half-baked rant about how hard it is to be hot.

Matthew Panzarino of TNW writes, "These girls are someone’s daughters, and they’re probably not evil. This video, however, is one of the worst things ever made."

My favourite commentary on the vid, however, is on the YouTube post by "Old Bailey Productions" (which itself appears to be a teenage vanity project):

"Old Bailey Productions does not take credit for creating any of the audio produced in this video. We simply produced the video the way the girls wanted it as a demo for their music. However, as associates of the artists we control all rights to the video and it's content."

That's right, folks. They may suck, but if they turn out to be the next Rebecca Black, I want my piece of the action.

F'd Ad Fridays: P.O.P. signs of the times

(click to enlarge and read)

Via Buzzfeed

Cigarettes: as yummy and cute as lollipops and ice cream!

Copyranter shared these unbelievably despicable ads for a Russian brand of cigarettes clearly targeting female teens (or perhaps tweens):

Apparently, the ads were pulled by a government regulator, and that action is being appealed by perhaps the most awful marketers on the planet.

(BTW, Google Translate gives the copy as: "Thoughts in the style of Kiss! I love everything new, delicious and round!" – making these ads eve more disturbing.)

There is also very teenybopper collateral as part of the "Kiss Club", which asks members their age but will take people up to the birth year 2000:

Oh yeah, and Kiss Cigarettes come in fun flavours like "menthol", "Fresh Apple", "Energy" and "Dream"...

While against violence, part of me still wishes I could hate these people to death.

Smells like irony to me

AdFreak reports that a new browser app from Axe lets you spray away sites that "stink".

So great. Now the whole internet reeks of sexually desperate teenage boy.  Ewwww...

Justin Bieber: Living, loving and advertising without irony

"So, what if we took this brand, this preteen heart-throb brand called 'Bieber', and extended it to a starter perfume? Then we market it with the ultimate pubescent girl fantasy of Bieber entering the bedroom, taking the girl flying in the air, and kissing her on the neck?"

"Kissing her on the neck?"

"Then she rides him from behind—fully dressed! Yeah, yeah! It's chaste, but plays into their immature and non-threatening ideas about sex. Plus, the whole thing has a PG vampire feel. Like Twilight..."

"But with Bieber!!!"

"Exactomundo. Use the perfume, get a non-penetrative seduction from flying vampire Bieber."

"You don't think the kids will find it a little... much?"

"Bieber fans, man. Unironic as they come. At least the straight little girl ones. I don't think the cougars and gay dudes will buy this shit anyway."

"Brilliant! Let's shoot this fucker...."

Not a PSA

It looks like there will be a moral to the story. There isn't. It's just a promo for the MTV show, Skins.



"Based on the popular British show of the same name, 'Skins' follows a group of nine friends navigating the often-tumultuous world of high school; sex, drugs and angst included."

Well, okay then. Would have made a great social ad, though. For many things.

Link via Ads of The World.