The new Sony PSP ad campaign has the blogosphere up in arms:
As I understand it, woefully few neo-Nazis purchase Sony products. In fact, this is probably a deeply untapped market in general.
Think of the disconnect white supremacists must feel from the electronics world. The can’t-we-all-just-get-along-mongers who hoard all the power have marginalized crackers everywhere by promoting black-cased products for decades. Their subconscious manipulation of the public has created a fuhrer furor over black products, and now the demand for them far outstrips that of their white brethren. This problem’s gotten so out of hand that Apple charges $1499 for the black MacBook when you can get the same one in white for $1099.
With the release of this subtle campaign, Sony one-upped the competition by reaching out to those who’ve suffered the oppression of “blacktronics.” I’m sure future BattleCry heil-fests and Prussian Blue concerts will be spilling over with PSPs now that whitey feels empowered to join the fray.
The neo-Nazis like their propaganda angry and white. Apparently, Sony’s more than happy to cater to them.
I don’t think it’s the Prussian Blue market moreso than it is the WHITE POWDER! market.
Wow, that is one offensive ad.
You were just dying to use that “fuhrer” pun, weren’t you?
Hah! I wish I thought that far ahead about my writing.
I’m afraid a lot of their target demographic is essentially neo-nazi in ideology, if not name. If you don’t believe me, just go to the general section of most any gamer forum.
[...] Rumor has it Sony’s trying to engage in a similar distraction tactic. Anything’s okay when kitties do it: [...]
Like I said over at the panda, when you see the other images it becomes a lot less offensive (also it’s not intended for American audiences so it doesn’t really take into account our experience with Slavery, see: at CtrlAltDel-online.com).
How does it become less offensive when you see that it was selected over images that didn’t show white dominating black?
I don’t buy the arguments at CAD. Among other things he says
“Being oversensitive about things like this billboard is what’s keeping this racial tension alive.”
That’s right, it’s the oppressed getting upset which is causing racism, not the actual racist ideologies. As soon as people stop getting upset, racism will vanish!
What it really means for him is that he’s not going to have to deal with racism (being white and middle class and male he really has it all going for him) so as soon as the oppressed people stop COMPLAINING he can go back to enjoying himself.
He also makes it about slavery by saying that no American alive at the moment ever owned a slave. Seems a bit beside the point because it doesn’t say anything to me about slavery, it just says to me, here is a white person using violence against a black person. You don’t have to go too far back in time to see racial crimes, and considering that younger people are the target of most gaming products, it is not cool to continue the normalisation of racial violence.
He’s previously weighed into such debates as the merits of the new name for the next Nintendo console and the best way to play particular player classes in various computer games.
also it’s not intended for American audiences so it doesn’t really take into account our experience with Slavery
Nope, it’s for Holland, the country that started the bloody Atlantic slave trade.
I’ve shown the image to thirteen people now, 7 black people and 6 white people, and the unanimous consensus is that the ad is horribly racist (one person, white, calling it offensive to white people too, in that it depicts white people as trying to dominate black people). And I think, regardless of what some dude at a gamer website thinks, that should be the standard. Does it offend a large amount of people? And if the answer is yes, then the ad should never have gotten passed the drawing board.