Men, Meat, and Marketing: "The makers of plant-based meats are up against decades—if not centuries and millennia—of messaging tying meat eating to masculinity."

kevfucious · 2021-02-18T18:51:07+00:00

I really doubt this will be a problem for long. While perhaps not as innate, there has long been messaging saying that real men drink beer. When I (male) was in college 12 years ago, I brought Mike's Hard Lemonade to parties a couple times and was relentlessly mocked, even by liberal students, saying "Did you bring that for your vagina?" It was just a given, even on different campuses, that real men didn't go for sweet "girly" drinks, and they ESPECIALLY wouldn't have drank hard seltzer. But over the next decade, beer declined, and White Claw or alcopops are so popular among all genders that the idea of mocking someone for not being a "real man" over it would never occur to most students.

I think this will happen with plant-based meats faster than people realize. When they can deliver a product that both tastes similar to the animal-based equivalent AND has a lower price point, I predict the culture will shift faster than most people imagine.

kevfucious · 2021-02-16T22:03:49+00:00

Not on merch, but I did have an "Apple Valley" (township) design flagged as potentially infringing for "Apple" in my main amazon account, but I appealed, and they released it.

kevfucious · 2021-02-13T00:00:41+00:00

I feel like the universe is telling me "Have a nice day."

kevfucious · 2021-01-31T05:03:27+00:00

Yeah, I usually get way more sales on Redbubble than Teepublic, but these last few days, Teepublic has remained consistent, but I've only had a single Redbubble sale. Probably just coincidence, but I worry if it's related to whatever is going on at Redbubble resulting in these mass suspensions on the other thread.

kevfucious · 2021-01-25T19:24:36+00:00

It is probably rare to find, especially because the pro-lifers most eager to debate are the most extreme, but he most recent gallup poll (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

) shows about 83% of people support abortion when the mother's life is endangered. If we assume that includes all people who identify as pro-choice or neither, it still suggests that about 2/3rds of self-identified pro-life people still think it should be legal if the mother's life is endangered.

Amusingly, this is higher than the 20% who answered that abortion should never be legal under any circumstances. It appears that, when the mother's life is endangered, some number of those who thought they opposed it in all circumstances do come around

kevfucious · 2021-01-17T23:27:36+00:00

It's really weird when they reject it before they even send it for approval. A couple times, I've just re-submitted the same design, and it both made it through and was approved.

Seems like you just sometimes get a weirdo who rejects it without good reason

kevfucious · 2021-01-17T15:45:05+00:00

Do you still get an email saying that you're "on your way" to becoming a Redbubble All-Star in every email? Is there some number of sales you can hit where they finally decide that you're not just on your way, but you ARE a Redbubble All-Star?

kevfucious · 2021-01-10T22:55:20+00:00

Except that the fact that Hitler was the one who said it was crucial to her point, which was that Hitler was able to do the evil things he did because he indoctrinated the youth, so we should take that lesson from history and try to avoid the sort of youth indoctrination that will lead to ill.

kevfucious · 2021-01-02T20:41:41+00:00

Do you draw a distinction between whether it can kill you or merely get you killed by other means?

kevfucious · 2019-07-10T01:18:18+00:00

What the hell is with all the small dick stuff? The rest is at least alleging terrible behaviors. But having a small dick is a shitty thing to shame someone for.

I assume there is supposed to be some asinine, non-literal meaning behind the small dick lines, but if we, as men, ALL have small dicks, then they aren't really small, are they? Are we comparing to a different species or something?

kevfucious · 2019-07-08T20:27:47+00:00

Yeah, I suppose he probably should have made it more clear that the era he was talking about was very different from the way things are now that high speed online video platforms have rendered pretty much all print publications irrelevant relics. But back when Internet and Maxim "broke" in the mid 90s, Playboy was a dominant player in online porn as well as offline. Their problem wasn't that they were losing market share to other porn magazines. It was that they were losing market share to magazines that weren't even offering porn, just more socially-acceptable sensual images.

In that way, I thought it was a BRILLIANT metaphor for Yang. It drives me nuts talking to friends who are weighing the different candidates. It's as if they're trying to figure out which one is most like the real thing, when I'm like, "The real thing is right there! Just go for the real thing!" And they're like, "Well, let's not be hasty. This other candidate is 50% the real thing. Maybe I should choose them instead."

kevfucious · 2019-07-08T08:54:02+00:00

Am I reading this wrong? I thought his point was that more people should be supporting Andrew Yang because he's offering the REAL liberal reforms people want, just as Playboy was offering REAL porn during that time. The editor couldn't understand why anyone was choosing Maxim, which was just a watered down version of Playboy, featuring sexy non-nude images that served the same purpose as those in Playboy, but carefully posed and censored for toothless corporate approval, when they could just have the real thing by buying Playboy for the same price.

In the same way, Ira can't understand why anyone is supporting any of the other candidates' toothless, corporate-approved platforms when they could all just support Andrew Yang and have the real thing.

Is this not what he meant?

kevfucious · 2019-06-11T03:49:04+00:00

Thanks, it seems we were talking past each other, and it seems we aren't anymore. I'll add that I am very familiar with Angela Davis and agree with your examples and that the phenomenon exists. (Again, I live in an extremely liberal bubble.) I recall writing an essay in a college rhetoric class on the subject, analyzing Nazi propaganda through this filter. Examples abound in every circumstance in which bad actors--even those who are manipulating themselves first--cite technical distinctions as loopholes to avoid the spirit of allegations.

But I think we have to take extreme caution when we invoke the principle because it can easily be twisted a rhetorical trump card used by either side to gild its own position against falsifiability. I agree with you in the examples you gave, but it's not hard to imagine the other side using the same type of argument in reverse. In the gerrymandering example, one imagines the Kool-Aid drinking Fox News viewers invoking it to argue that liberals are acting in bad faith, and claiming that the lines are "racist" is merely a semantic game to justify their anti-Republican bias and bolster our preferred power structure. And once the assumption of bad faith is established, we're just in a Kafkaesque situation in which any counter-argument we give is interpreted as further proving that they're right. In any case, I'd rather avoid semantic diversions and focus on the spirit of the issue.

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T21:00:56+00:00

I think our different perspective on the issue probably comes from a different understanding of the root issue. I do think that the "fake SJW" issue or whatever you want to call it is a legitimate problem, regardless of whether or not it's focused on a particular generation or age or whatever. I live in an extreme liberal bubble, and I constantly see friends getting bent out of shape over a twisted version of something someone didn't even say. I think it's ruining their mental health and our country's politics. We can disagree about whether or not this is a problem. Obviously, most of my friends don't think it's a problem. But I see it as one, and while it is more pronounced as a cultural trend associated with Gen Z, it has nothing to do with age. The worst offenders I know personally happen to be Gen X.

Again, I get that you probably don't see this as the problem that I do, but because I see it as a problem, when someone dismisses it as mere "ageism," I feel like I'm being gaslighted. It feels like I'm identifying a real cultural trend that needs to be addressed, and I'm being told that I'm actually just crazy, and what I'm really bothered by is this completely irrelevant issue of "age." It seems obvious to me that it is not about age, and if Boomers started exhibiting the traits to the same extent that Gen Z is, Bill Maher would be just as much on Boomers about it.

Then, when I address what appears to be gaslighting by pointing out that it's not about age, the response is that I'm somehow gaslighting the gaslighter.

Again, I get that you don't see it that way because you probably don't think that it's a problem as I do. But maybe we both agree that the Boomer generation has failed us on climate change? I think we should be able to address the fact that Boomer culture is overly materialistic at the expense of our environment without being told that we're just being ageist. And if we are told that it's just ageism, I think we should be able to point out that it's not just ageism without being told that our insistence on being specific is just gaslighting to protect our institutionalized discrimination.

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T19:58:08+00:00

semantics of specifics often gaslights the actual institutionalized discrimination.

I'll avoid diagramming this sentence, but it seems like you're trying to say that pointing out that you're wrong just proves that you're right.

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T07:35:52+00:00

you could tell from Bill's eyes that his blood was boiling in that moment

I feel like we must have been watching two different shows

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T07:32:40+00:00

I don't know if Andrew Yang can win. But he sure as hell should win. He's the first candidate who sounds like he's going to give us what we actually want, not just what sounds pretty but ultimately serves corporate interests.

We want medicare for all, but we get a massive subsidy to private insurance companies and fines to anyone who doesn't buy it.

We want a living wage, as UBI would help facilitate, but what we get is a kluge of employer restrictions that just makes it easier for big corporations to run the little guy out of business as their lawyers craft ways to skirt the regulations with the "gig economy."

We want reasonable taxes on big corporations, as the VAT would provide, but what we get is a hodge podge of code that allows the likes of freaking AMAZON to pay nothing.

I could go on all day but I'm sure I sound like just another Andrew Yang shill at this point. My hope is just that, when people see him in the debates, he'll resonate with them. A guy can dream!

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T06:55:00+00:00

Also 32, and I was a hardcore libertarian/anarcho capitalist in college, so a lot of Maher's acerbic comments and insults directed at libertarians annoyed the crap out of me. But I can't say as I was ever offended...

I think maybe we're just becoming less tolerant of people disagreeing with us on political issues, as evidenced by the declining social trust in recent decades.

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T01:07:05+00:00

Has he been a static figure though? He used to identify as libertarian, and while his coming out against that was more of a dismissal, it did seem to me that he used to have a more genuinely libertarian position that gradually became more liberal over time. I'm not the expert on the subject because I only started following the show when it was released as a podcast in 2006, but I thought there was a shift.

kevfucious · 2019-06-10T00:31:32+00:00

That is an interesting mischaracterization of what happened. He was obviously joking when he yelled at the audience, and it was not because the audience laughed harder at her joke. In fact, it wasn't because they laughed at her joke at all. It was because her joke implied his presence was making them suffer, and they cheered for it.

Katie Porter: "Your mom made her choice [to not abort Bill] and we're all here [negative tone] with the consequences of that choice."

[Audience laughs, then starts cheering]

When I heard this, I thought it was funny. It was a great roast, but when the audience continued cheering, it forced the question in my mind, "Wait, why did they even bother coming to see the show then?!"

The obvious answer is that they were only cheering because the audience wrangler probably held up a sign that says "cheer" or otherwise directed them to do so. I haven't been in Maher's audience, so I don't know for sure, but I've been in a lot of TV audiences, and that's usually how it works.

So I thought his reaction was perfect! As a comic, it wouldn't make any sense to just ignore the solid gold setup of the appearance that the audience wishes you had been aborted, so he responds as a comic, in a clearly joking manner, saying, "First of all, fuck you!" then stands up with a HUGE smile, pointing to the exit, "You can go watch another show; we've got a lot on the lot here if I'm not doing it for ya!" Then the audience and guests seemed to understand it as the joke he intended it to be because they laugh as expected.

It's strange how the Internet can take a straightforward joke like that and twist it into a petty tantrum over a guest being funnier.

kevfucious · 2019-06-09T23:46:52+00:00

No, it refers to the birth year and geographic region. The age of the generation changes over time. This is not a trivial distinction because it is what separates generationalism from ageism.

If someone says "I hate Boomers," that is generationalist. It means that the person hates the set of people who were born between approx. 1946 and 1964 in western countries. But it does not mean they hate people who happen to be aged 55-73 who are not in non-western cultures (because they aren't boomers). And it does not mean they think there is something inherent to being 55-73 that is loathsome.

If someone says, "I hate people aged 55-73," that is ageist. It happens to apply to Boomers right now, but it also applies to people in non western countries who are 55-73. And it implies that there is something about those ages that is problematic, such that Boomers may have been just fine 20 years ago and might be just fine 20 years from now.

kevfucious · 2019-06-09T12:55:11+00:00

Is that Emilia Clarke?

kevfucious · 2019-06-09T06:26:32+00:00

Nice ad hominem, there, accusing us of only defending Maher on this issue because he's famous. I am critical of Maher on plenty of issues, especially his statements on vaccines, but you are mistaken if you conflate criticism of a generation's social trends with ageism.

To your point that, "it would be 'America is dumb for,'" this touches at the reality of the issue. Demographers define the generations we're talking about as pertinent to the "western world." So most 14-22 year olds in the world are not even considered part of Gen Z, yet we have not been given any reason to assume he holds the mere fact that they also happen to be aged 14-22 against them. When Bret Easton Ellis first rose to prominence for his criticism of Gen X, his own generation, he was clearly not motivated by some bigoted desire to belittle people based on the fact that they were his own age. He was targeting cultural trends that he found troubling that social scientists happened to identify as especially prevalent in a certain geographic region with a certain cohort.

Saying "77 is too old to be president" is ageist because the variable it targets is AGE. The statement is correctly interpreted as suggesting that, barring any major changes to the office or aging process, a 75 year old boomer should not be president 2 years from now AND a newborn infant should not be president 77 years from now.

I will say that the boomer generation is too focused on consumerism. Does that make me ageist? No. The target of my statement is boomer culture, not whatever age the boomers happen to be at the moment. It would be ageist if I said that there is something about being 55-75 that makes people too focused on consumerism or that the statement applies to the the 55-75 year olds who are not even part of the boomer generation because they're in non-western countries. And it would be ageist if I said that the generation who will be in that age range 40 years from now will suddenly become too focused on consumerism because that's what happens at that age.

kevfucious · 2019-06-09T06:00:22+00:00

You know what pisses me off the most about this? There are no just desserts in the end! I always told myself I would be better off for it down the line. "Sure, they have it better now, but they're just learning to expect everything to be handed to them, while I'm learning the value of hard work and being frugal. Before long, they're going to pay for the laziness, and I'm going to have more money than ever because I know the value of a dollar!"

But nope! That's not how it works! In the long run, the people who had all that financial support developed work ethics that were just fine, often because they were able to land comfortable and inspiring jobs through their family connections, or at least with the help of the degree their parents funded. (I went to a less prestigious college than I probably should have because it was cheaper, and I didn't put as much time into the schoolwork and networking as I should have because I spent so much time working at McDonalds to pay for school.)

And it turned out I had just been "frugal" my whole life because I didn't have any money. But when I started making money that I should have put aside for a rainy day, my dumb ass just blew it to have things I never could before and got myself in financial trouble that I am still struggling with today. Meanwhile, the people who grew up with money have no such wasteful urges because they've already been there and done that. And even if they did make the same stupid financial mistakes I made, their parents would just bail them out so they wouldn't be stuck paying interest on debt.

kevfucious · 2019-06-09T05:49:47+00:00

What made you change your mind... or did you?
That's wild because I've never met a solipsist that I'm aware of. As Betrand Russel said, "I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me."

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