Loder, not shaming her for her adult look, asked one of the best follow up questions ever. Once again paraphrasing, "do you think it's appropriate, considering most of your fans are 14 and younger, a fan base you specifically cultivated, to be encouraging them to dress and act far older than they really are?" A clearly bothered Britney snapped at Loder. Paraphrasing "I'm not their parents. They're the ones who are really responsible for their kids. I'm just being me." So endeth the interview.
What Loder deftly pointed out is the hypocrisy of Spears and her team. You do everything to encourage the kids to dress like a stripper in a Vegas nightclub, but then wash your hands of any responsibility when the kids actually follow through with your encouragement. For lack of a better way to describe it culturally, it's the 'Bad Uncle,' the guy who allows their 8 year old nieces and nephews to watch a hard 'R' rated horror film when babysitting them, but then acts like their nightmares are not his responsibility. "They're your kids. They should know what they can and can't watch. How am I responsible for them sitting next to me while I watched the movie, a movie which I described as incredible, one of the best films ever, a must see film only baby losers haven't watched?"
On my radio show yesterday I pointed out how the alcohol industry seems to have adopted a 'Bad Uncle' mentality.
Let me say two things. I don't drink. I got sober over 5 years ago due to health concerns and the fact it was becoming a 'go to' habit. I made the decision to give it up completely. I'm A LOT healthier since I stopped drinking. Not a judgment, more of an observation.
That being said, I have no problem with people drinking. If you like to indulge, more power to you. It is legal! This is not about whether you should or should not drink, so do not take this post as shaming people who do. This post is about shaming the alcohol manufacturers who present their product in such an insane manner it makes it seem like there are no consequences for drinking all the time.
People there are consequences for drinking all the time. None of them are good.
Alcohol companies have evolved. They used to only fight about traditional alcoholic drinks; beer, wine, and the most popular spirits, but their mentality has changed. The alcohol industry stopped limiting the competition to just other traditional alcohol companies, and focused on ALL drinking, both alcoholic and non alcoholic, as the new competition. I think the alcohol infused lemonades and iced teas were the first real foray into the 'liquor version of non liquor drinks' market, a natural evolution from wine coolers of the 80's and 90's. I'm not saying people didn't mix drinks in the past. Of course they did, but this was no longer marketing the vodka as something you could mix with lemonade, rather a 'hard' lemonade, a product marketed as lemonade "with a kick."
Then came the hard sodas, marketed as your favorite sodas, with a kick. They even put the hard sodas in bottles and packaging which mimicked traditional soda packaging. The clear impression was to say "you're not really buying booze. You're buying soda with a kick!" The marketing campaign was geared to get people to give up their non-alcoholic soda on a sunny afternoon, and ramp up the fun with their 'implied harmless' version. It was marketed like a consumer picking a Pepsi or RC instead of Coke. It clearly wasn't, as liquor companies started blurring the lines intentionally.
Next up was the wildly popular hard seltzer waters, seltzer water with a kick! This new alcoholic drink was marketed directly to women. Why are you just having a seltzer water, when you can ramp up the fun! They we're encouraging people to take another non-alcoholic drink and replace it with a boozed up version of it. It's been incredibly successful. Now we have hard juices (juices with a kick!), and hard coffees (coffee with a kick!). We're at a point where the only two beverages left without a major alcoholic version are traditional water, and milk (although a listener did remind me there's a fermented horse milk beverage quite popular in the Mongolian region. Sounds delicious!).
The marketing of these products is undeniable: Replace your lame non-alcoholic soda, lemonade, juice, seltzer water and coffee with a fun hard version. It's gotten to the point where I'd not be surprised if Bailey's Irish Cream started to market themselves as a fun option to lame milk for your morning cereal (Cereal, with a kick!).
The other insane marketing message being pushed onto the masses by the alcohol companies is the idea it's okay to drink at all hours of the day! This is courtesy of Coors, the far right beer company who's product tastes atrocious. Even when I was drinking, I'd pick Special Export over Coors.
Coors is marketing new TV ads. The two most obnoxious ones are really scary. The first one is an ad which features a Coors beer as the official shower beer. That's right, they're encouraging shower drinking. That might not be bad if the clear impression is this person just got done with work for the day and is having an ice cold one as they wash off the dirt and sweat from the job, but if you re-watch the ad, there's NO implication this is the shower at the end of the day. It could be the first shower after you wake up! That's not encouraging alcoholism AT ALL! (added sarcasm)
The other ad is even worse. It shows two guys wearing pajamas. They're getting ready to presumably watch the pregame for the day's college football schedule, pre-game shows which start at 7 AM on certain sports networks. The two are getting ready to have some breakfast, and one of the guys pulls out two cans of Coors! The ad is framed as enjoying the beer of Saturday morning drinking. Wow, they're not even trying to hide it.
Not everyone involved in the liquor industry is irresponsible. The people I know who own or manage the local brew houses and distilleries do not want people getting drunk every day and every night. But they have a level of culpability. Bars, restaurants and anyone who serves alcohol can be held accountable for a person drinking too much in their establishment. This means one of the more responsible places to drink today is in licensed bars and restaurants. But as I was thinking about that after the radio show, it dawned on me almost every alcohol ad today, which originates from the alcohol manufacturers, shows people drinking OUTSIDE of a bar environment. They know bars and restaurants have to limit alcohol intake, so the obvious solution is to show people drinking everywhere BUT in a bar or restaurant. This is a HUGE change, as most alcohol ads when I was a kid showed consumption in a bar environment. Lite Beer's taste great/less filling ads were all featured in an environment where the servers had responsibility over the drinker. The alcohol industry must have realized this responsibility was causing them sales.
At the end of the day, here's the ugly truth. Alcohol producers are AT BEST ambivalent to alcoholism; at worst, they want to encourage it. They have a product which is addictive, so the more people who get addicted, the more product they sell. Tie that nugget into their marketing campaigns and you really see how evil the liquor industry has become.
But the alcohol industry will always fall back to the 'Bad Uncle' defense.
"Sure we encouraged the idea you could replace most of your non alcoholic drinks with alcoholic versions, and we undeniably have been encouraging people to drink at all hours of the day, but it's not our fault you failed to get your kids to school because you were drunk, or missed an important business meeting because you were drunk, or got divorced because you were drunk, or got fired because you were drunk, or caused a car crash which killed people because you were drunk, or died from alcoholism because you were drunk. After our clear message to constantly drink alcohol at all hours of the day, we told you to 'Drink Responsibly,' whatever the hell that means. Once again, you're the drunks; we only encouraged you. We didn't pour anything down your throat. We just chanted 'chug, chug, chug' while you drank! Remember, IT'S NOT OUR FAULT!!!"
"We're not responsible!" That's an understatement Bad Uncle...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to leave a comment. I'll review it and as long as it's not dirty, I'll post it (even if you disagree with me).