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News & ArtsWednesday, January 4, 2012
Teh Internets Older Brothers and Headsets
Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 PM
In this ad for Letsgomobile, we see a beautiful black woman with a Bluetooth headset.
The target for this particular ad is, one supposes, a black man. The ad says: If you want to get with her, you have to get one of these. But anyone who has spent even a day in South Seattle knows black women, let alone beautiful ones, do not wear such things on their ears. Instead you find it's very popular with middle-aged black men who wear suits and drive SUVs.
My point: I heard from a reliable source that the kind of women these men are trying to attract (divorced, single, maybe a mother of two) actually find headsets to be a bad sign. From the mouth of one such woman:"The minute I see a man wearing one of those, I know it's not happening."
2
good work generalizing people into non-existent groups, and making assumptions about their preferences based on your "reliable source"
4
It's not just a divorced, single, maybe mother of two thing. Headsets are universal deal-breakers.
5
Really? You think they're trying to sell a pink headset to men? You're a goddamn idiot, Charles. Yet again. This ad is aimed at women. It says "Buy this girly headset, and you'll be beautiful too." Basic ad illiteracy.
6
I just use my wired headset. It has a microphone, and people don't think you look nearly as weird.
7
This image brings this to mind:
Archer: “You’re black…ish…”
Lana: “ISH?”
Archer: “Well, what’s the word for it, Lana? You freaked out when I said ‘Quadroon!’”
Archer: “You’re black…ish…”
Lana: “ISH?”
Archer: “Well, what’s the word for it, Lana? You freaked out when I said ‘Quadroon!’”
8
Overgeneralize much? Oh, wait, it's Charles. That one kid on a skateboard in Westlake tells you everything you need to know about whites / asians / blacks / indians / whatever ethnicity he or she happened to be.
9
@3, @4, @5 are all correct. Wearing a headset anywhere except while performing a job that requires you to answer phones marks you as a douche whatever your race. Because it means that you think looking like you're doing a job that requires you to answer phones is cool. She looks like a receptionist, and while I admire and respect receptionists, I would be very, very suspicious of anyone who pretends to be one when they are not.
Indeed, holding voice conversations with your cell phone in view (or earshot) of other people is pretty douchey whether there's a headset involved or not.
Indeed, holding voice conversations with your cell phone in view (or earshot) of other people is pretty douchey whether there's a headset involved or not.
12
She's about as black as Vanessa Williams, or Halle Berry. Which is to say, not very black at all.
14
As a white woman, I can tell you that the race of either the woman or the man is irrelevant to whether a man looks like a douche when wearing one of those. Men of all races, nationalities, religions, sexualities, ages, sizes, etc. look like douches when wearing them.
16
So you're telling me all those sexy Carl's Jr.® ads with hot ladies aren't trying to sell giant greaseburgers to women, but to piggish men like myself?
19
@1,@12, she's black alright. If you go to the south east seaboard states, you'll see many more good looking black women as portrayed in the photo. Unfortunately, few and far between in the land of pho and frappaccino.
21
Guy was wearing a blutooth at my friends' wedding. I really wanted to remove at least one of his teeth. A sign that reads "I'm an asshole" is cheaper.
22
I loved visiting seattle this last summer, but I have to say that the racial/social divide that occurs just south of downtown was a bit too much to take. Charles' reference to black women in South Seattle only reinforced my perception.
23
i've seen plenty of african american women wearing bluetooth earpieces. bedazzled bluetooth earpieces. your 1-woman survey needs to get real.
25
'The target for this particular ad is, one supposes, a black man.'
...why? Is all advertising aimed at men? Or just tech advertising?
What I see when I see that ad is an attempt to get to a demographic that wants to think of itself as attractive, young, connected, professional (or well-to-do) and on the go. (The company name, LetsGoMobile, is a hint on that last one.) That a woman is the model suggests to me that it's women who are being targeted here, not men.
Look at it another way. When you see a commercial on TV showing boys playing with action figure dolls, do you think those ads are meant to attract girls to the toys, or other boys? When it's a girl playing with ponies, is it boys they're trying to draw to the ponies? (I realize this is a tremendously sexist example, but TTBOMK toy ads for children are universally tremendously sexist.)
By extension, then, when you see an ad of a woman playing with a toy, why would you assume that the ad is meant to attract men to that toy?
While I realize that's my own interpretation of the demographic for this ad, I do work in advertising. That doesn't mean I necessarily know precisely what is intended with this image, but I might have at least some idea.
For what it's worth, if I were to assemble an ad that was meant to appeal to a black man, I probably wouldn't do one exactly like this - though if I used it as a starting point, I'd probably replace the woman with a man, and change the color of the BlueDouche to grey or a similarly neutral 'professional' color.
...why? Is all advertising aimed at men? Or just tech advertising?
What I see when I see that ad is an attempt to get to a demographic that wants to think of itself as attractive, young, connected, professional (or well-to-do) and on the go. (The company name, LetsGoMobile, is a hint on that last one.) That a woman is the model suggests to me that it's women who are being targeted here, not men.
Look at it another way. When you see a commercial on TV showing boys playing with action figure dolls, do you think those ads are meant to attract girls to the toys, or other boys? When it's a girl playing with ponies, is it boys they're trying to draw to the ponies? (I realize this is a tremendously sexist example, but TTBOMK toy ads for children are universally tremendously sexist.)
By extension, then, when you see an ad of a woman playing with a toy, why would you assume that the ad is meant to attract men to that toy?
While I realize that's my own interpretation of the demographic for this ad, I do work in advertising. That doesn't mean I necessarily know precisely what is intended with this image, but I might have at least some idea.
For what it's worth, if I were to assemble an ad that was meant to appeal to a black man, I probably wouldn't do one exactly like this - though if I used it as a starting point, I'd probably replace the woman with a man, and change the color of the BlueDouche to grey or a similarly neutral 'professional' color.
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