This will be my WTF post for the week. I recall several years ago a series of commercials that Nike did with Dennis Hopper to sell more sneakers. You may recall them - Dennis as the slightly obsessed umpire fawning over athletes shoes. Some group took offense, saying that he was making fun of "crazy" people. It actually caused quite a stir and the ad campaign was ultimately dropped. I remember a segment on the 'news' about it - they went an interviewed this gentlemen about how he was offended by the reference and stereotyping the commercials represented. I remember thinking at the time that the guy seemed, well, a little obsessive about it. Oh well - no great loss - Nike figured out other ways to sell sneakers.
This time Tiger, in describing his putting in the Masters, used the word "spaz". Well, it turns out that this has significantly more meaning in the UK than the US, were I use it to describe all of my children at some point or another, and my wife on occasion. I'm still not sure what exactly it means to the UK (something to do with CP), but the spaz council apparently got upset and "blasted" Woods for his insensitivity, citing that, as an African-American, he should have been more aware of stereotypes. Excuse me? This is just bull-shit. All I have to do is wait for a celebrity to use some word or expression, call myself offended, and get stories generated all over the world with my name on them. Then I can put up his apology on my website, hoping that the press coverage will help generated donations. I don't mean to be a spaz about it, but WTF???
No comments:
Post a Comment