Reebok: Leave decency for the wussies, bruh.
How (not) to market to really insecure men. And how not to learn manhood from ads.
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Originally appeared at BuzzFeed
2. Molson
This ended well for Jay Gatsby. If real guys didn’t believe in this garbage, though, the whole “ultra lounge” industry in financial districts everywhere would go out of business.
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3. Jim Beam
There are folks who want their groceries to tell them they’re a man’s man. They sometimes sob to sleep in Jeeps listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
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4. Moosehead Beer
Dudes should be proud of not knowing more than two words. We accept all major credit cards.
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5. Microwave potatoes
Breaking: Cooking is for girls.
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6. Bushmaster Firearms
Do you enjoy mowing down tiny rodents with our best technology? Well are you a man or not!? We accept all major credit cards.
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Want to see more ads aimed at men? Visit BuzzFeed to read the rest of the post.
Lead photo via cheaterville.com
I don’t think the fifth one was marketed towards men. I think it was marketed towards women especially since it says husband and not man.
This a perfect example of why it’s important for men to be feminists (or ‘humanists’ if you don’t think that term can be salvaged) as a means of saving themselves from having their dicks dictated to them.
“This a perfect example of why it’s important for men to be feminists (or ‘humanists’ if you don’t think that term can be salvaged) as a means of saving themselves from having their dicks dictated to them.” This is a good reason men should avoid being boxed into any label. Men are men, all shapes, sizes, colors etc. It’s a good reason for men to simply be aware of their own being and what’s best for them as individuals. These adds are no different then GMP and the multitude of articles that want men to be okay with say …… Read more »
I wonder whether in responding to such adverts we aren’t in danger of losing a sense of proportion. It seems to me that the significance of such media messages is all too often assumed, rather than argued. We are often presented with selections of such extreme ads or media messages, often vaguely or explicitly misogynistic, for instance. However, we are seldom given any sense of proportion. The following are the sorts of questions that I would like to see answered: 1. Ignoring our appetite for self-righteous outrage, moral superiority, and phenomena that play into our confirmation bias, have these messages… Read more »
And now we’ve help make these ads even more famous. GMP has essentially given them even more publicity, totally free. They’ll get even more traction behind them. I don’t think I had ever heard of Bushmaster before seeing this ad, and now I do. Now thousands of people are going to say “have you seen that horrible ad for ___? Check it out. Isn’t it obnoxious?” Criticize it enough and it might even go viral or make the nightly news, in which case the obnoxiousness pays off.
wellokaythen, Bushmaster came under HUUUUGE criticism because these were the ads that were up on their site the day that the Newtown massacre happened, with a Bushmaster, and for days they didn’t take them down. Everyone wrote articles about it. It was really awful.
I get the “Streisand Effect” but sometimes to even NOTICE that things aren’t quite right, we have to point them out. If we just allude to it, we won’t notice how totally normal it feels to see them.
I know it’s a tough call. I get it. If I’m going to boycott idiocy, I need to know which idiots to boycott. Some people just need to be named and taken to task.
I’m just thinking that once in a while it might be better to black out the name of the company so there’s no free advertising. For some of the “bad boy” faux-countercultural campaigns, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. We shouldn’t let the culturally powerful choose the time and place where and when we fight them.
Thing is, my son (Who’s currently serving as a ‘saw gunner’ in Afghanistan) told me I should purchase a Bushmaster as home protection. He told me it’s one of the finest made guns around.
You live in a world with Axe commercials, and ask how prevalent this kind of message is? Really? As the mother of a son, the media insistence that Real Men Do X drives me up a WALL.
Interesting to see the stereotypes of a “manly man” being used to promote products to guys. I hope most guys can realize that these ads are actually insulting their intelligence and well-rounded characteristics. You don’t have to give up intelligence and compassion to be considered a true man.