EPIC HEADDESK. via libilou @ flickr
I checked Jezebel for the first time in a long time this morning, since the awesome Kate Harding is guesting over there. While reading her most recent piece, I was distracted half-way through by an ad on the side for Svedka. If you’re not familiar with this product, it is brand of vodka, which, as far as I can tell from advertising placement in New York, is the distilled spirit most consumed by people who hang out in bus shelters in the East Village.
If you are familiar with the product, it’s because you’ve probably seen their gross ads in magazines or on billboards, where pneumatically distorted, hyper-sexualized but completely dehumanized (funny how those things so often go together) women-machines coax you to drink The Vodka of the Future, because that’s when you’ll get to plug your USB into her port. Or something.
The ads were bad enough before this, but there’s a new twist: “Bot” yourself. Now, we have Mad Men yourself (except for hair color, every woman looks exactly the same on those, have you noticed?), and Zwinkie yourself (jesus god with a graham cracker crust) and any number of other corporate-product-brand-yourself things. It’s not my bag, but whatever. But Svedka is really taking it to a new level: now you can “Turn yourself and your friends into party bots!”
That’s right, girls. Buy our overpriced product, then advertise yourself as our skinless, tit-tacular Philip K. Dick wank fantasy whore, because “fembots have more fun!’” Wheeee, lookit my tiny carbon-fiber waist and smooth, hairless pistons! Self-objectification is sexyfun!
Holy shit. Holy. Shit. Does it get any balder (pun intended, I guess) than this? Who is Svedka selling to? What women want to “bot” themselves? Why would a straight guy want to fuck a robot? Adding to my confusion, I’ve heard that around here, Svedka is the vodka of choice for Chelsea Boys.
If this were a Monday, I’d be going back to bed.
I have seen these in the subway and they CREEP ME THE FUCK OUT.
Christ, the Bot Me ads. I haven’t seen them for a few days, actually, but they were FUCKING CREEPY AS SHIT last week and the week before.
Is Svedka expensive? I remember buying it a couple of years ago because it was the cheapest bottle in my liquor store and I really wanted penne alla vodka for dinner that night.
Bite me, Svedka.
This is why I produce my own moonshine in a still out in my backyard.
I actually emailed Anna about these when they first appeared. She reminded me that she and the other Jez eds have little control over the advertising, which is managed by Gawker overlords, and meekly suggested that since there are male bots too, it’s “equal opportunity lame” or somesuch. I haven’t actually seen those ads in a while, but it might just be my Adblock getting smarter.
And people say the ad business isn’t misogynistic. I say the men who buy this stuff should take their bottles to bed with them and leave us live women the bloody hell alone.
Aww, funnyface, that response makes me sad. Not because they can’t say no to sexist ads, but because Anna dragged out the whole “token unadvertised sexy man makes it all equal” bit. Just like how someone always brings up the lettuce dudes that PeTA has on their website, to argue against their evident sexism. It just doesn’t cancel it out. It doesn’t mean the same thing, and it doesn’t have the same effect on men in society.
This ad campaign is incredibly offensive. I can’t imagine an ad campaign the same thing being done with a male robot in such sexy positions. The ads here in Boston don’t vary. They are all basically saying “Women are mindless robots that will put out if you drink svedka.” Frankly, I’m amazed at how difficult it’s been to find similar opinions to those here on the Internet. Even the NYTimes article about the campaign didn’t mention the sexism. What is this doing to the young girls out there seeing this?
CG