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For a few reasons, I’ve found myself consuming more ad-supported video lately, both traditional broadcast-style television and ad-supported streaming. I work in an advertising-adjacent industry, so I try to look at the commercials with a more critical eye. And there’s one advertising trend that I can’t seem to escape:
White men don’t exist.
This is not to say that white men are somewhat underrepresented, that despite being 31% of the US population, they’re only 15% of those being cast in ads, or something along those lines. This is to say that there are literally no white men in TV commercials. You can watch ad-supported TV for hours and not see a single one. For a while I noticed that white men were allowed to be shown, but only if there was a non-white, non-male onscreen with them. But more recently the trend has been to simply not show them at all.
I’d love for someone to try and replicate this - watch TV for 2-3 hours and count how many seconds of ad time a white male is onscreen, and if he’s shown by himself or not.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, of course: white male celebrities can be onscreen by themselves; no one has a problem with Tom Brady or Jon Travolta. And in that same vein, an ad for a particular movie or TV show will obviously show clips from the show or movie, where the rules for ads don’t apply.
This leads me to one of two conclusions:
Representation doesn’t really matter. “Representation Matters” is something we hear quite often, but the revealed preference of advertisers for not casting white men in their ads shows they know it to be untrue. While they’re happy to parrot “Representation Matters,” they have all the actual data at their fingertips. White men buy trucks and big macs and technology, so if representation actually mattered, advertisers would include them in their ads.
Representation does matter, but those making the decisions are so ideologically committed that they’re willing to hurt their own bottom line in order to “do the right thing.” They’re so committed to their ideals that they’re willing to depress their own effectiveness by more than 30%. And they do so with no guarantee that their rival agency is going to follow the same set of rules, potentially putting them out of business.
Applying this realization to the broader culture war, I’ve often been skeptical of the idea of a distributed conspiracy. Large conspiracies like faking the moon landing would require so many people to be in on it as to be impossible to maintain. So concepts like “The Cathedral” or “The Deep State” have always elicited some amount of skepticism from me.
And yet, here we have a distributed conspiracy in action! Thousands of ad agencies, absent a clear directive or government regulation, have all landed on the exact rule, and one that would on its face appear to be very limiting.
Part of me is concerned that by even replying to you I'm going to be feeding the troll, but other users have already touched upon this, and I feel Like someone needs to just come out and say it.
"Representation" as you are framing it here is frankly stupid. Advertisers by contrast are not stupid. Grifters and Parasites maybe, but not stupid. And they are often quite candid about their methods. It's no secret that if you want to attract the attention of straight white guys you don't use images of straight white guys. You use images of hot chicks, fast cars, sweeping vistas, and the fucking moon landings. Afterall, that is what we all want isn't it?
Sure, I feel a vague annoyance when the BBC goes and portrays medieval London as just as "diverse" as modern London but then I feel annoyed when King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (who allegedly lived in the 7th or 8th century) are portrayed as wearing over-polished 16th century jousting armor and kind of resent the fact that the filmmakers changed the antagonist ship in Master and Commander from American to French. Thing is that I also recognize that I'm the outlier for caring about this shit. Everyone else's attitude could be summed up by saying; London is London, Knights in shining armor are Knights in shining armor, and who cares who exactly is eating grapeshot so long as Britania rules the waves?
I think the question that you, the person posting under the pseudonym @I_like_big_mottes, ought to be asking is "why do you care so much?" Why is your (and apparently so many other's) sense of self and feelings of validation so wrapped up in being represented on screen. That strikes me as the far more interesting question.
By his argument, they don't have to be stupid, just ideologically comitted, which I think can easily argued. In related news: that Bud Light marketing chick has entered the chat.
When they create a norm that tells me to be super sensitive about that kind of representation regarding other people, and then openly flaunt that norm regarding me, that will look like an insult, and I don't like being insulted.
Touche' re: Bud Light marketing chick, but I also find it notable how fast and hard InBev started to backpedal once they realized it might effect their bottom line. See penultimate commercial from my break down stream.
For one InBev that kinda sorta noticed there are Nike, Target, Disney and many others that keep being relentlessly woke.
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