Not a week goes by without at least one social media storm over a politically incorrect faux pas. The latest one in Perth involves iconic Northbridge hotel the Brass Monkey. In this ruckus New Year's Eve frat party organisers hung sexist signage off the hotel balconies.
Sure, some of these signs were tacky to say the least. And they would have put some noses out of joint at any time, not just in this tragically right-on era. In those sepia tone days before the internet (i.e., the early 1990s and beforehand), they probably would have provoked one or two stories in the local papers, and maybe a small report in the West Australian, along with a few outraged letters.
But now, with almost everyone active on social media, and so many people seeing themselves as social justice warriors, this has turned into a massive problem for the hotel.
Every business owner is terrified of this kind of reputational storm these days. And they tend to follow a set pattern:
Some business owner, employee or client does something a bit silly, and one or more SJWs gets wind of it. They express their pique on Facebook or a similar site, and hordes of their fellow travellers pile on with derision, advertising their own spurious virtue by lambasting the business in question.
At this point the mainstream media gets involved because such a hue and cry constitues a genuine story. Not surprisingly this just magnifies the outrage in both scale and intensity.
If the business hasn't apologized at this point, it usually does. But that almost invariably makes things worse. It vindicates the SJWs, who go in harder. And it gives the MSM a good reason to revisit the story.
Almost invariably the reputational damage this process causes is way out of proportion to the original sin. And that definitely applies here.
Some of the signs at the Brass Monkey were undeniably sexist and gross. You've just gotta shake your head at ones reading “Our couches pull out, but we don't”, “Daughter drop off point” and “You teach her morals, we'll teach her oral”.
But a couple of them were trying to be PC even if they were still really tacky. Those reading “We want your freshmen sons, too” and “MILFs and DILFs welcome” clearly advocated, er, gender equity and anti-ageism.
This seemed to imply that the frat party organizers were worried about a potential backlash. So they attempted to pre-emptively neutralize it with these lame appeals to PC. That was doomed to failure, of course.
It's an established fact that you just can't reason with lefties who sense an opportunity to signal their virtue through indignation and disgust. Remember that many of the millennial lefty women most outraged by the Brass Monkey Hotel signs would themselves be enthusiastic supporters of social media campaigns like “#KillAllMen”. I suspect a few might have even lobbed at the local Slut Walk.
When it comes to using sexist and offensive terminology they take pride in, er, subverting the dominant paradigm. In short, they're massive hypocrites. Which just makes this whole episode even more ridiculous, in my opinion.
Shaking your head in mild disgust and finding somewhere else to drink is SOOOO 20th Century...
ReplyDeleteIf the business hasn't apologized at this point, it usually does. But that almost invariably makes things worse.
ReplyDeleteApologising is the wort thing you can do. When you apologise the SJWs smell blood in the water.