Malware laden software that kills your hard drive? Not a problem. Ads that eat up all your RAM and prevents anything from loading? Child’s play. Annoying pop-ups that prevent you from working? No issues here. Some sexy Victoria’s Secret model appearing on a tower banner? Whoa, lad… shut it down it’s sexist! That’s the logic behind Adblock Plus’ new bid to encourage people to use their service. It’s not about promoting fewer user debilitating ad services, but promoting the idea that until ads stop showing “unrealistic portrayals of women – and men” they need to be blocked.
The tweet went out on June 12th, 2019, where they retweeted an article from the South China Morning Post titled “How gender stereotyping in adverts is bad for women and men, and why it persists”, which was originally published back on October 17th, 2018.
“Unrealistic portrayals of women – and men – persist.
And this gender-biased advertising encourages discrimination based on age, ethnicity, ability, and sexual orientation.”If ads can’t stop being sexist, can we at least stop seeing them?!#adblockplushttps://t.co/z0HoRobR0B
— Adblock Plus (@AdblockPlus) June 12, 2019
So why the tweet of an article from a year ago claiming that a real woman walking down the catwalk is an “unrealistic” portrayal of a real woman? Well, Adblock Plus wanted to inform people that their ad blocker can also block ads of pictures of sexy women (and presumably men) for which their portrayal is deemed “sexist”.
This did not go over well with normal people who obviously do enjoy looking at real women who happen to be sexy, especially real women who happen to be sexy working at Victoria’s Secret, with which Adblock Plus linked to an article where that was the main header image. When called out on this oxymoron the ad blocking service tried to defend their position.
That was aimed for people who specifically don’t like sexist ads and don’t know about ad blocking. User choice is our top priority 🙂
— Adblock Plus (@AdblockPlus) June 13, 2019
It doesn’t matter who it was aimed for when you’re wrong.
>Unrealistic
>Shows real woman
— Star Catinum (@nivrap_nobody) June 13, 2019
The tweet got poor traction and poor reactions, with almost no one supporting the company’s attempt to virtue signal against beautiful women.
Word of advice. Stick to blocking ads and not trying to preach anything.
— Aru (@Aru12181918) June 13, 2019
Thank god I’ve been using uBlock Origin for the last couple of years.
— ThyBonesConsumed (@ThyBonesConsumd) June 13, 2019
Holy shit! Block adblock! What is this cancerous account?
— Doravos (@Doravos1) June 12, 2019
— FakeXero (@FakeXeroTV) June 12, 2019
The last tweet definitely seemed to be the most apropos for the occasion.
It’s not like the company gets a lot of traction on their other tweets anyway, but they’re already on the road to being ratio’d after the woke tweet went live yesterday.
What’s also so funny about it is that if more companies weren’t so keen on trying to tap the phantom audience by gearing their products toward the Social Justice crowd, more people might be willing to forgo the usage of ad blockers to see sexy chicks in lingerie on tower banners, or hot Victoria’s Secret models in their pop-up displays. Heck, that’s one way to keep me from turning on the advertisement blockers.
Anyway, this is just another in a long line of companies who decided to get woke, such as Gilette, Johnnie Walker, and Burger King, to name but a few. Whether or not it affects them enough to make it onto the Get Woke; Go Broke – Master List remains to be seen.
(Thanks for the news tip ThyBonesConsumed)
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