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Of Clorox and Wimps

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  • Of Clorox and Wimps

    Do we have no spine today?

    The link can be found here.

    The text is as follows:

    Have we created a society of wimps? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

    Recently, a news story came out involving Clorox Bleach. Apple had come out with a long list of Emojis. For those who don't know, these are little icons that you can use when messaging someone. Clorox had a bottle of Clorox with all the Emojis on it with the following quote in a tweet:

    "New emojis are alright but where's the bleach."
    Now if you happen to be a normal rational person on planet Earth, you see that Clorox has just looked at a list of emojis which includes one of several household items and asked where bleach was. Unfortunately, Earth is filled with many people who aren't normal and rational.

    That is because this tweet was said to be racist.

    Yes. You heard that right. Racist.

    Why was it racist? Because there were emojis also of people with skin of different colors. The assumption being that surely, the PR person at Clorox was secretly a racist and sent out a message saying that the list of emojis needed to be bleached to get rid of all of that and return us to white skin. Clorox explained further they were speaking about objects in there that are usually messy or cause messes, like a bathtub or red wine.

    Leave it to the offended crowd to not see that.



    Unfortunately, Clorox caved with an apology. What would have been better in the adult world, is to simply ignore people who are whiners. Give them more attention and they keep going this route. Our world is unfortunately getting more and more full of people who think the worst possible thing that you can do is to offend someone and that if you have offended someone, then you must make up for it in spades.

    This is an ideology that as Christians we must fight.

    Now let's state something at the start. I am not at all suggesting that we should seek to be offensive in everything. While I do believe often in hard-hitting apologetics, I do not believe in offending for the sake of offending. I consider it more like if stepping on your toes is the only way to get you to move, then I will step as hard as I can. I am more concerned about getting you to the Gospel or protecting those who already believe the Gospel than I am about your feelings. We are getting closer and closer to a time where if we keep this up, the government will be increasingly used to protect peoples' feelings.

    If this is you, then just grow up.

    You might not being able to help being offended. In fact, many times, you should feel offended about things, and if you are, there can be appropriate responses to that, but you do not police the world looking for things that offend you and in fact reading meaning into statements and deciding that if you think it is offensive, then the other person surely intended to be offensive. Try to practice some charitable interpretation. Do not assume the worst possible thing about what someone says. Of course, the worst possible thing could possibly be true, but there is no reason to assume it.

    Why is this our enemy? Because the Gospel is guaranteed to be offensive. You really like being told you're a sinner? I'm a Christian as it is, and I don't like being told that message a lot of times. It is painful to be told that you are doing something wrong. It is painful to be told that something you are doing is sinful. It is painful to have to repent for something. These are meant for our joy in the long-term and to lead us to be happy and holy people, but they sting at the time. As the writer of Hebrews says, no discipline seems pleasant when we are going through it.

    If we are to be ministers of the Gospel, we must build up our resolve and ignore passive-aggressive behavior like that. People are often going to try to guilt us into things. This is why I try to tell people, and even I slip up at this from time to time, is that no one can make you feel anything. You cannot make yourself feel happy. If you were feeling miserable, you're not just going to say "I will feel happy now" and then feel happy. It will take work on your part. I do think you can get yourself to that point, but it will take work. It is a mistake then when you go to people, and this can often happen in marriage and again I am often guilty, and say "You made me feel angry when you did this" or something similar. It makes more sense to say "When you do X, I feel angry." Now it could be that the other person did indeed do something wrong and has an issue to work on. It could also be you are way too sensitive and then you have an issue you need to work on. In some cases, it could be both.

    And could that partially be what is behind this? We are living in an era where people do not want to take responsibility for their actions? We think that if you have sex, you should not be responsible for some outcomes, such as pregnancy. We do not encourage overcoming. This is also seen in the message of the problem of bullying. Bullies are not going to go away. Sorry. As long as there are people, some of those people will be jerks. Now should we try to stop that behavior? Sure. The number one thing we should be doing is making sure the behavior is irrelevant so people don't even bother doing that. Bullies do what they do because they get the response that they want. When people are scared of them, they thrive.

    How about building up victims instead? Instead of painting them as victims, let them see themselves as overcomers. They can overcome the bullies, but it will take work. Some cases could take a lot of work and they could take therapy in some cases. That's okay. We need to be kind and encouraging at these times and let people work out any emotional issues that they have, but in doing this, we are empowering them to be stronger. If we are Christians, this is imperative, because we have to do that which shows that we are truly conquerors in Christ. We bear the image of God. We are to rule for Him. How dare we think we are going to be nothing. How can we possibly lower ourselves when God does so much to raise us up?

    When you see the victim culture, do not give in and do not accept responsibility for their feelings. You can accept responsibility if you do wrong, and indeed you should. If someone misunderstands you, you can say you are sorry they thought such a thing and if you need to be clearer, you can do that, but a person who is truly someone worth it will also be interested in that relationship with you. People who are just trying to guilt you are not people you need to waste time on. To offend someone is not the end of the world. Offenses will come and sometimes they will be necessary. It is our choice how we respond to them.

    We should be adults. Let's stop being children.

    In Christ,
    Nick Peters

  • #2
    Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
    Clorox had a bottle of Clorox with all the Emojis on it with the following quote in a tweet:



    Now if you happen to be a normal rational person on planet Earth, you see that Clorox has just looked at a list of emojis which includes one of several household items and asked where bleach was.
    I agree that the Clorox intern wasn't trying to convey any racist subtext, but this analysis is technically a bit off, Nick. I think the issue is that people thought the image was showing every new emoji in the form of a Clorox bottle EXCEPT the racially diverse faces--and if you look closely, you'll notice that the racially diverse faces really are absent. That might've lent more credence to the idea that the tweet had some sinister meaning. Curiously, toilet, bathtub and wine emojis are also absent from the image, which makes Clorox's response that they were referring to those specific household objects seem puzzling and inconsistent...along with the fact that the image strangely contains pizza and number emojis as well.

    That aside, your response is puzzling. It seems like this was just an innocent misunderstanding, and now that Clorox has clarified what it meant, everyone can just laugh it off and move on with their day. I'm not sure why this incident warranted such a lengthy blog post. Are massive numbers of people still angry at Clorox for some reason, even after the clarification? Maybe I'm missing something, but if anything, it seems as if you're the one making a big deal about this.

    If anything, the main takeaway from this should be "Corporate brands shouldn't have Twitter accounts for their product, especially if the product is something boring and interchangeable like bleach." Many brands try to appear hip and cool on Twitter, and almost all of them fall short. That, or "Emojis offer no constructive value and should be done away with altogether."
    Last edited by fm93; 04-13-2015, 07:28 PM.
    Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.--Isaiah 1:17

    I don't think that all forms o[f] slavery are inherently immoral.--seer

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    • #3
      My concern is that this is an example of what happens. People read offense into everything. If I had seen another company, I would have done the same thing.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by fm93 View Post
        If anything, the main takeaway from this should be "Corporate brands shouldn't have Twitter accounts for their product, especially if the product is something boring and interchangeable like bleach."
        The main takeaway is that victim culture combined with Political Correctness creates a vicious cycle as individuals and companies keep bowing to the mob whenever they set out to lynch someone merely because some people are hypersensitised and offended - their feels are hurt.

        Note how the moderate liberals, as almost always, try to paper over the problem and pretend it's not there.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Paprika View Post
          The main takeaway is that victim culture
          What do you mean by this term?

          combined with Political Correctness
          I don't see political correctness anywhere in this incident. What do you mean by that term?

          creates a vicious cycle as individuals and companies keep bowing to the mob whenever they set out to lynch someone
          What? If someone misunderstands what you meant, the proper thing to do is to apologize for not having been clear enough and then clarify what you meant--which is precisely what Clorox did. That's not "bowing to a mob."
          Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.--Isaiah 1:17

          I don't think that all forms o[f] slavery are inherently immoral.--seer

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by fm93 View Post
            What? If someone misunderstands what you meant, the proper thing to do is to apologize for not having been clear enough . . .
            If someone misunderstands your message because they were either too lazy to take the time necessary to understand it, or too daft to get it the proper response is either to give them a (figurative) smack upside the head, or roll your eyes at their stupidity and ignore their misguided rantings of pretentious outrage.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
              If someone misunderstands your message because they were either too lazy to take the time necessary to understand it, or too daft to get it the proper response is either to give them a (figurative) smack upside the head, or roll your eyes at their stupidity and ignore their misguided rantings of pretentious outrage.
              And go on letting people hold a mistaken belief about you when you could take literally just a few seconds to explain what you actually meant?

              Also, it seems like quite a bit of psychoanalysis is being attempted here. "Misguided," sure, but "pretentious outrage?" How would you know that some folks are being pretentious? If Clorox actually was trying to sneak racist subtext into that tweet, it would be perfectly legitimate to feel angry. Just calling it "misguided outrage" would suffice and is more demonstrably accurate.

              And more to the point, haven't people stopped feeling angry by now, since Clorox has explained what the tweet actually meant? I am becoming increasingly confused by why people are still focusing on a perception that lasted for just a few hours.
              Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.--Isaiah 1:17

              I don't think that all forms o[f] slavery are inherently immoral.--seer

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                And go on letting people hold a mistaken belief about you when you could take literally just a few seconds to explain what you actually meant?
                My objection was more against the notion that you would have to apologize for being unclear, when the fault is on the listener/reader, and not you.

                Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                Also, it seems like quite a bit of psychoanalysis is being attempted here. "Misguided," sure, but "pretentious outrage?" How would you know that some folks are being pretentious? If Clorox actually was trying to sneak racist subtext into that tweet, it would be perfectly legitimate to feel angry. Just calling it "misguided outrage" would suffice and is more demonstrably accurate.
                IMO, when someone gets outraged by something that is not even prima facie offensive (not even remotely so), which was the case with Clorox's tweet, then working up an outrage over it is far more likely to be because of pretentiousness than anything else. If people actually thought that Clorox was sneaking racist subtext into the tweet they're on par with conspiracy theorists who claim that "jet fuel can't melt steel beams".

                Oh wait. You're right. I'll retract my statement about them being pretentious and replace it with the assertion that they're as loony as conspiracy theorists instead.

                Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                And more to the point, haven't people stopped feeling angry by now, since Clorox has explained what the tweet actually meant? I am becoming increasingly confused by why people are still focusing on a perception that lasted for just a few hours.
                It's why they got outraged that is the main issue, not the duration of their outrage.

                Comment


                • #9
                  In short, culture involves embracing or manufacturing victimhood for use as a club.

                  Accusations of racism is inextricably attempts to enforce political correctness: that is a badthought/badspeech/badperson, silence/attack/shun it/him.

                  What? If someone misunderstands what you meant, the proper thing to do is to apologize for not having been clear enough and then clarify what you meant--which is precisely what Clorox did. That's not "bowing to a mob."



                  There is no reason to assume that when speech is misunderstood that ipso facto the responsibility lies with the speaker and not the listener.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                    And more to the point, haven't people stopped feeling angry by now, since Clorox has explained what the tweet actually meant?
                    No, they stopped the attacks precisely because Clorox conceded, apologising and deleting the tweet.

                    I am becoming increasingly confused by why people are still focusing on a perception that lasted for just a few hours.

                    "It's so short don't take notice of it!"

                    Originally posted by Paprika
                    Note how the moderate liberals, as almost always, try to paper over the problem and pretend it's not there.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      It's one thing to ask what is meant because it seems unclear. In marriage for instance, one spouse can do something the other can interpret as an unloving action or say something the other interprets as unloving. It's always good to ask for the explanation first.

                      Our society does not care about what the possible true intent was. They play judge, jury, and executioner based on if they feel offended.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                        think the issue is that people thought the image was showing every new emoji in the form of a Clorox bottle EXCEPT the racially diverse faces--and if you look closely, you'll notice that the racially diverse faces really are absent.
                        So let me ask you some questions, as someone who never even heard of an "emoji" before this.

                        1) You say maybe, "people thought the image was showing every new emoji..." Exactly how many of these new emojis were introduced in this update of whatever it is? 100? 200?

                        2) Was it really all of them used in this image produced by Clorox -- except the racially diverse ones? Who counted and made the comparison, and put it on record? Can't have been all of them, though, you say the toilet and wine and bathtub ones are missing, how many more are?

                        3) How did Clorox create the image? Did they cut and paste from a premade field of these icons? Or did they select one of them at a time to create the bottle shape?

                        I'm not sure why this incident warranted such a lengthy blog post. Are massive numbers of people still angry at Clorox for some reason, even after the clarification?
                        When should the license to comment have expired? I see people have continued to comment on this, even make YT videos, since AP made this post.


                        Many brands try to appear hip and cool on Twitter, and almost all of them fall short. That, or "Emojis offer no constructive value and should be done away with altogether."
                        Sounds good to me! So what the hell is an emoji, anyway? (Obviously sarcasm....I looked it up. What a waste of time.)

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          In the context of customer service, of course, it's generally expected that one will often have to apologize if somebody else messes up. (I once had to apologize to a customer who had accidentally spilled something after she overheard my manager screaming profanity when I showed him the mess.) That wouldn't apply here, though.
                          "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchow...verse-options/

                            Partial answer my question #1, looks like about 300 were introduced.

                            Looks like someone beat these guys to the punch even then:

                            Many people complained about the bright yellow skin tone in the new emojis. “Apple rolling out new racially diverse emoji! Not sure how I’m feeling about these ultra-yellow Asian emoji,” tweeted Yurie Kwon, an associate account executive at SutherlandGold Group. The yellow emoji would be offensive if it was were to represent Asians, but it is not supposed to be viewed as an Asian person.

                            The yellow emoji has been a standard hue for icons for years and represents a “generic (nonhuman)” default, according to The Washington Post. Before Apple started supporting the digital images, even the earliest emojis in the 90’s included in Japanese messaging programs and AOL AOL -0.8% Instant Messenger used yellow faces. The yellow face emojis seem to trace back to the iconic yellow smiley face designed by Harvey Ball BLL +0.17% in the 60′s that said “have a nice day.”
                            Dang, I didn't know Homer Simpson was Asian.

                            hs.jpg

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                            • #15
                              Someone thought smilies were racist because they are yellow???
                              If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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