Highlights from the #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag that’s blowing up on Twitter

Hey David! In your new site update thingie, I could really use an “Edit” button to counteract my stupidity. Anyway, that first part should say: “I know. Sadly, it’s not all good. One review of another…”

I would be curious to see the prices of these manly products. For example, I did a quick check at Amazon, and a 48 count pack of Dude Wipes is $7. A 64 count of baby wipes is $2 (even less per wipe if buy in larger bulk). That’s a massive mark up in order to wipe in a manly manner.

These manly companies are laughing a manly laugh all the way to the bank.

I…I just don’t even know how to engage with someone who seemingly willfully construes critiques of toxic masculinity as attacks on men as a gender.

I just…I mean, anytime the subject’s discussed just about anywhere online, they swarm and spout BS like Someone.

Part of me wants to explain the concept, but a larger part can’t believe that they’re arguing in good faith, that it will amount to patiently drawing something out for a somehow belligerent brick wall.

@Buttercup:

WWTH – wow, that pink camoflauge AR-15 is something else. I’m trying to think of situations where a person would need to blend into a pink background. Maybe if they were stalking their quarry in a Hello Kitty factory?

“Hello, Arthur.”

“Hullo, James. Thanks for meeting me.”

“My pleasure. Always interesting, working with you. What have you got?”

“Well, I’m afraid this one is a little … out of the ordinary.”

“Oh?”

“… She’s a national.”

“Must be serious.”

“We have reason to believe she’s aiding and abetting a known domestic terrorist. She’s obstructing our ministry’s attempts to handle the situation before the public is alarmed. And when she was in charge of our … quaint little school, well, just look at these pictures.”

“Photographs, Arthur? How modern.”

“Untraceable. One of our scholarship students helped to make them. … I say, this coffee is really rather good. James? James!”

“Sorry, Arthur. A little creased? Just photographs. Where, and when?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know where she is, except when she’s in the office in our ministry. And it’s really rather urgent. Now, we can get you into our ministry. Here’s the plan of the building. Are you all right? You’ve gone kind of stiff.”

“Never mind, Arthur. Should be easy enough to get inside her office. When does she come, and when does she go?”

“We don’t know, it’s like she’s got a direct line into her office without passing through the building.”

“I’ll have to lay in wait. Inside. Got a picture of her office?”

“Yes, here, James.”

“I never thought I’d need to say this, Arthur.”

“Yes, James?”

“I’m going to need a pink gun.”

I was shopping for fragrance for the Beloved and found one I really liked but could not bring myself to buy because the bottle was in the shape of a very realistic hand grenade. Because guys can’t smell good unless they’re prepared to blow things up, clearly.

The mark up on any sort of cosmetic/toiletry products is ridiculous anyway. Just about every bath product is a variation on washing up liquid.

One of my friends loves a skin product called Creme design la Mer. The thing is this stuff is identical to a product used to treat burns, and I’m not using identical rhetorically, I do mean literally. You can buy the burn stuff from pharmaceutical suppliers in 5 litre containers for less than the cost of a tiny pot jar of the branded stuff, but apparently it’s the pot that counts.

Thanks for responding courteously to that; I think #NotAllMarketingProfessionals is a valid sentiment here. You seem lovely, and I apologise for my earlier hostility.

Hey, no biggie. Like I said, I totally get where you’re coming from.

However, when it comes to marketing in general, I think we’re talking at cross purposes. It isn’t that I object to people using their powers for evil instead of for good; it’s that I object to them using those powers at all.

Sadly, we exist in a Nash Equilibrium* world in which any product which isn’t marketed aggressively will disappear, sliding under people’s radar regardless of how good it is. The solution to this isn’t for us to market good causes even harder and hope that the people using their powers for the bad ones don’t correspondingly step up their own game; the solution is to agree that nothing gets marketing money thrown at it at all, and consumers will make whatever decisions make sense to them.

First – TIL I learned what a Nash Equilibrium is! Thank you! Not being facetious here, I love learning new things. The commenters here are good for that.

Marketing isn’t a thing that’s going to go away, ever. It just isn’t. For consumers to even make a decision, marketing has to happen. (websites, blogs, social media etc are all part of marketing – so a company having a website to even visit is marketing, as is the search engine optimization they’ve done to help their website rank when people search for what they offer)

And of course it isn’t just products – it’s services, charities, non-profit orgs, etc. It’s also not just large corporations – it’s mom & pop shops, small businesses, independent professionals, bootstrapped startups, theatre companies, artists, etc. I recently worked with a professional speaker who is one of the best, most genuine people I’ve ever met; he makes life better for people wherever he goes. He literally changes people’s lives – I interviewed several former clients of his and was blown away by what they told me about him and what he’d done for them. If he didn’t market himself, the world would be poorer for it IMO.

Anyway, I don’t think the solution is to market good stuff more aggressively, but more honestly. Plenty of smaller companies are understanding that having genuine conversations with their customers/potential customers, actually listening to and caring about those customers, and being transparent about who they are and how they operate is more than enough to stand out from the noise.

I’m lucky enough to work with people who want to do good for the world. Of course, that’s because I market myself to those sorts of people. 🙂 I market my own business in order to attract the type of clients I want to work with, and who share my values (and who want to work with someone with my values and approach). They can compare me and my services to other providers, and then make the decision that makes sense to them.

I do think that’s vastly different from exploiting insecurities to sell ball wipes to men. 😉

Clearly Tesco is marketing pink sand for the pink camouflage patterned guns. How else can you set up a firing range to practice for those critical pink beach raids?

As any successful business knows when it comes to marketing you don’t sell what you can make, you make what you can sell.

Of course they are. Once again, we’ve had to parse words through “Brospeech” because apparently roses are too feminine for their delicate little man-hands.

I had to laugh about this.
It’s the marketing execs plot to get families to buy two of a product when they only need one. Simple as that. It’s the same reason they gender toys.
It’s hilarious that men are so scared that using pink soap might make them gay. That hand grenade shower puff is priceless. I want one 🙂