The Absurdity of College-Aimed Advertising

I was sitting in the gym yesterday after I had finished working out when I saw the back of a shirt I had seen a thousand times on campus before. This, however, was the first time I really contemplated how ridiculous the shirt was. If you go to college, you've probably seen one. It's a shirt for the women's cause, specifically, against sexual assault. Rape, if you're not following. It looks like this:



The back said something like "Real men respect. Real men listen. Real men get consent." Or something to that effect.

As I said, I'd seen the shirt a thousand times, and never thought about how offensively stupid its marketing was--the cause is great, I'm all for not raping people. However, whose idea was it to use this cheap marketing gimmick? Let's start with the front of the shirt.

"Got consent?" is a play on the iconic "Got milk?" ad campaign. I get the idea here--let's use an advertising means for this cause that literally everyone will recognize and identify with. But why got milk? Because a man must gain consent, thus playing on the "got" part? Again, I see where the logic apparently began, but to juxtapose this next to an image of milk, which is undoubtedly the image in conjures in everyone's mind upon seeing it, can't help the cause without causing many to laugh in its face. When I think of something as sobering as sexual assault, the last thing I think of is milk, unless I'm re-reading A Clockwork Orange or watching the film, and even then I have no trouble remembering the milk was laced with mind altering drugs. If I were about to sleep with a girl whose shirt read "Got consent?", I'd step back and say, "You know what? I've changed my mind."

Then there's the back of the shirt, another cheap marketing trick aimed to attack how stupidly vulnerable the male ego is. Now, don't get me wrong, men deserve every sexual label given to them, whether the individual is guilty of being a meatheaded sex crazed toolbox or not. We aren't all that way, and if we're one of the few, it's rather easy to dispel that notion by simply showing there's more on our minds than titties and motorboating. Or whatever you like. Men love to show how manly they are and prove their masculinity by showing what constitutes being a "real man", and this shirt goes after that. However, even the dumbest jock who flexes every morning in the mirror knows that attempting to put a spin on this by calling out those who don't listen, don't respect, don't show the human characteristics any intelligent woman will look for before promptly kicking the idiot man to the curb knows this won't work. In this sense, it makes both genders look stupid--females can't actually believe this will work, and men can't either.

How about instead of kitschy t shirts that don't accomplish anything, we make some sort of ad campaign that relies on something simple and intellectual if we want to effect change?

This shirt is child's play in terms of absurdity next to the "Save the tatas" campaign that's carried on for a while now. If you haven't seen anything with this emblazoned upon it, you're lucky--until now, because here's what it looks like:



Again, I have to question whose idea this possibly could have been, but again, there's probably no point. Here's the issue with this campaign: it's offensive on multiple levels. Obviously, it's offensive to breast cancer patients who aren't retarded, but since I'm not one of them, I won't try to speak for them--I'll just assume there's at least one and move on.

What's more offensive is how mind numbingly stupid it is. My brain bleeds just thinking about not only money being spent to put it onto bumper stickers and t shirts, but that women will actually buy it. Breast cancer awareness as a whole has taken a serious hit in its dignity--two years in a row now have brought Facebook status update trends surrounding breast cancer. Last year every girl posted the color of the bra she was wearing--but didn't say what an update that simply said "green" or "white" or "polka dot" or "Spider-Man" meant, prompting everyone to ask just what the hell was going on. This year it was "post where you put your purse when you come home, but precede the location with 'I like it'." News feeds were littered with updates reading "I like it on the floor" and "I like it under my desk" and "I like it hanging on the coat rack in the front entrance." As crazy as this probably drives all the boys, where exactly does this accomplish anything for breast cancer awareness or research? Oh, that's right, it raises all that money for it.

I saw a girl in a store one day wearing a shirt that said, and I'm not kidding, "Save my boobs."

There is no dignity left in any kind of advertising.

If awareness campaigns surrounding issues as serious as sexual assault against women and breast cancer are willing to sacrifice any self respect, there's probably no hope for any kind of change.

Where did this idea begin?

Probably somewhere between inane buzzwords like "sex sells!" and "gender stereotypes", but what does it matter? Clearly we all need to make sure men will get their acts together are to have a nice glass of consent, (consent mustache equally necessary) and they need to buy their girlfriend or wife a shirt asking to save her tatas. Mustache not required.