July 29, 2007

• This should go viral. An outrageous image, if only for the stupidity of the metaphor of runners and connection speed. Well played, jccalhoun.
• There are more important things in the world.
• Lots more important, like there's this cat that knows when you're gonna die and.....
• And we're sure this isn't a joke mock-up?
• This reminds me of the recent Special K commercial where this white woman in a red dress is in this bleached office kitchen and two white co-workers, a feminine man and a woman, approach her and ask her why she's so happy/glowing/whatever marketing bullshit. The woman demurs and walks in front of a white background where a red K fades in behind her red silhouette. The K becomes a box of special k with two identical boxes on either side effectively and obviously spelling KKK on a white background due to the size of the logo on the box. It was just a little more obvious than this ad.
• Jebus, Intel. WTF?
• I have a feeling I know who the executive creative director for this little advertising project may have been.
• Must we choose between racist and stupid? I vote for both.
• When the title is "Racist or Supid" (sic), the question kind of answers itself.
• Why they didn't use girls.
• Can't wait to try out Intel's new Sambo 2000 chip. Supposed to be faster than Carl Lewis.
• PS, when you buy your next mac, remember that you are supporting racism. kthxbye
• I can still not find any proof that this is a real ad. All google hits seem to lead back to one site, penciledin.com, the same on posted in the FPP. So I'm still not sure it's real. I can't believe no news service would pick this up if it were.
• same one posted Some days, you just wish, you know, that there was a way to preview these things.
• RTD, you're baaaad.
• Intel has issued an apology for the ad.
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• Thank you, koko. Thank you very much.
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• OK, so it's real. Here's my next thought direction. It seems to me to be likely that Intel did not intend to make a racist ad. Even if every exec at Intel is racist, they'd be cutting off their noses to spite their faces if they were that blatant about it. So assuming it was unintentional... ...isn't it sad we live in a world where people who are not having racist thoughts still have to look at an ad and think "hey, might this be perceived by others as racist?"... ...or, in other words, will we ever get to a society where we don't see color if we have to live in a society where we're hyper aware of color? By the way, I picked up a few things on the internets in my quest to validate the authenticity of this picture: 1. It is actually one racer, cloned many times. 2. Most people commenting on blogs that addressed this picture stated that they really had to look to see what the problem was. So if our society has at least some of its members not even seeing anything wrong until it's pointed out, that means we might actually be on the way to not seeing color. And now we take a step back. Isn't it possible that the ad people chose this one runner (cloned into eight) because he or she liked the look of his physique, or even the way the light played off his particular skin shade? I'm rambling at this point, so I'll go away now.
• Of course they didn't intend to make a racist ad.
• That would be supid.
• Absolutely without question unintentional. However, since we've had 300 years of majority thought believing and legally/culturally codifying the idea that black people SHOULD bow down to white people, and that we're currently trying to get away from that, I think it's reasonable that Intel rethink their campaign.
• Er... replace "that we're trying" with "since we're trying".