They have a ploy here where you get two of their select "premium" (which they constantly rotate) sandwiches for $5, which I've been taking advantage of from time-to-time. No more.
Posted on 07/12/2014 10:21:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last week, Burger King unveiled the greatest monument to ad decadence this year (so far): The Proud Whopper.
What, pray tell, is a Proud Whopper? It's a whopper with a rainbow-colored wrapper. Outside of that, it's identical to a normal whopper—and that's the point Burger King is trying to make. When the wrapper is opened, it states “we are all the same inside.” Just so, an asexual person or a gay person is the same on the inside as a straight person; we're all blood, guts, and bones with sinews holding it all together.
A Burger King PR rep will tell you it's a show of Burger King's solidarity with and love towards the LGBTQIA community. “We felt [the Proud Whopper] could bring to life a message of equality, self-expression, authenticity, and just being who you are,” a Burger King senior vice president of global branding told TIME.
However, to someone who's not a soulless marketing drone, the Proud Whopper is naught but pandering that doesn't help progress so much as it helps Burger King. You can just see old ad-men in Burger King HQ saying to himself, “Hmm, being gay is in now? How can we make money off this?”
But Burger King isn't the first brand to try and cash in on the zeitgeist's zeal towards social justice, diversity, and tolerance. The whole advertising world is going gay—from Target to Chevrolet. While this seems like a cause waving the rainbow flag in glee over, it's not. Advertising is a world of heartless cutthroats all with a predilection towards mendacity. Advertisers don't care about social causes, they care about how they can hijack social causes to further their own ends. Brands are not benevolent. As Salon's Daniel D'Addario noted:
“That's right—appealing to minority communities is what corporations should do in order to make sure they don't miss out on those sweet gay dollars. It's transparently what advertising has always been about, but in an era in which high-profile ad campaigns like the Cheerios spot featuring a multiracial family have been treated as a self-explanatory social good, the discerning gay consumer will hopefully not be too swayed by ads that are meant just to cash in on demographic identity."
An established brand pushing a social justice isn't activism, it's marketing—but even prestigious publications like The Wall Street Journal fall for the ploy. They considered Burger King's ridiculous Proud Whopper as a sign of the company “stepping up” for LGBT rights. They also noted that the video of people unveiling the Proud Whopper has more than 4.3 million views on YouTube.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
That's great, right? Well it's great if you're Burger King. Now 4.3 million people (and counting) are going to have a positive image of your brand. Burger King isn't only a fast food chain—they're an ally They care.
But where were Burger King and the other LGBT-friendly brands when the potential loss of tenure in San Fransisco threatened to put the jobs of many LGBT teachers in jeopardy? Are they on the front lines of the LGBT struggle in Ukraine? Are they trying to address the fact that LGBT employees feel less satisfied and less empowered at work? What about the very real, very disturbing hiring bias the LGBT community faces? LGBT discrimination is still here, and a shiny wrapper won't make it go anywhere.
The Proud Whopper didn't solve any problems. It didn't “support” the LGBT community. It supported Burger King's ad-ops division. It supported their whopper sales.
I'm sure you're thinking, “Oh, of course, it didn't; it's just a burger.”
True, it's just a burger. But that LGBT-friendly burger got media coverage at all the web's top sites. The day-to-day instances of discrimination people face (whether due to sexual orientation, skin color, or whatever other reason) can rarely boast this claim. Nine times out of 10 we only hear about the former.
“Look how progressive the world is becoming,” we say as we watch a gay couple open a Proud Whopper on YouTube. As we're transfixed by the feels, countless acts of prejudice are happening right around us, of which we remain blissfully unaware. Transgender people just received federal employment protection last month. It took that long to enact something that should've happened ages ago. But who gives a rat's derriere, society is saved because gay couples are in commercials and there's a gay-friendly whopper. Truly, we live in enlightened times.
And this isn't just a problem for LGBT issues. Remember Dove's “Real Beauty Sketches?” It became the most viral ad of all time thanks to its premise of teaching women to respect themselves—so long as “respecting themselves” meant buying Dove skin car products, natch. The new #LikeAGirl campaign from Always is equally farcical: Be sure to be strong and confident, ladies...but be sure you do that by purchasing Always products.
And, of course, the #LikeAGirl commercial features a conventionally attractive white woman as the star. Do you think #LikeAGirl will help dispel the circumstances that led to #YesAllWomen or stop any other problem women face?
Social justice-conscious advertising mimics the symptoms of progress. It creates illusions of progress that allow us to think society is more progressive than it truly is. When we see commercials touting trendy activist topics, it tricks us into believing the world is moving on from prejudice and doubt. In reality, however, the commercials are a form of prejudice in and of themselves. “Gay's are safe enough to advertise to,” “Women lack confidence and we can exploit that,” etc.
Advertisers are friends to no one. We would all do well to remember that.
*****
Matt Saccaro has contrbuted to Salon, Thought Catalog, Medium, and BuzzFeed. He’s the author of the eBook, Sex, Lies, and Scantrons, as well as an eBook about U.S. diplomatic history.
Ahhhhh....I think crazy is not a word I would use to describe them.
Let’s call it uninhibited.
Inhibitions are what guide us and prevent us from doing harmful things, to include murder, mistreatment of animals, pissing on the sidewalk...any number of things.
What I am trying to say is that without inhibitions, (cultural norms of behavior) one would appear quite crazy to one who is inhibited.
What progressives have done and are in the process of doing, is to attack religion as the source of evil as they see it, but it is also the source of many of our inhibitions. That is why they appear crazy to you.
In my own lifetime, growing up in the 50s and 60s, my generation shed many of my parents generation’s inhibitions.
Each successive generation is shedding more. Discarding them as garbage. I can agree that some of them were, but not all. Some of those inhibitions were developed over thousands of years to make sure the species survived and they have been honed and perfected since.
I am arguing that what I see happening is quite simple at it’s core and it has nothing to do with defective brains or genetics or psychopathy.
It’s a breakdown of cultural and social guidelines without which society will devolve from this point and may not survive another 100 years as we know it.
Essentially, the only way to control a society that cannot control it’s self is tyranny. It is a natural occurrence as the result of a lack of self control in the populations of the world.
So I find it significant and ironic that the “free love” and “free sex” generation that I was born into, who sought freedom as it’s mantra, is probably partly responsible for what will certainly be the total loss of it.
No, they are not crazy or unhinged. They are uninhibited and are seeking the limit of tolerance.
Eventually, they will find it. Someone will step in and reset the limits and repaint the stripes on the highway. But they will do it by force of arms or by destruction or both and freedom will be lost and not regained for a long time. Assuming the society survives..in part or at all.
Alienating a customers to attract <2% of the population plus sycophants, makes a lot of sense.
I used to eat lots of Burger King when I was in my early 20s, partially explaining why I was fat back then.
Now those fat burgers are $4-5 a piece here.(Whoppers, etc)
Only welfare recipients can afford that,
The pro-gay stuff isnt making them look any better
They have a ploy here where you get two of their select "premium" (which they constantly rotate) sandwiches for $5, which I've been taking advantage of from time-to-time. No more.
We get the 2 for 1 coupons in the mail which I occasionally take advantage of.
But it sure taste better to me when I as in my 20s.
During part of my twenties I worked midnight to eight as a security policeman at an Air Guard base. I consumed most or all of an eight pack of 16oz. tall boy Mountain Dews or Cokes. For awhile there I was drinking that many Jolt “All the sugar and twice the caffeine” Colas. Whew!
If they were smart over at McDonalds, they’d introduce the Straight Mac and let regular Americans decide which one is better.
I assume that serial killers are “the same inside”. That doesn’t justify their actions or excuse them from the consequences of those actions. Just because a killer has a spleen and I have a spleen it doesn’t mean I should have sympathy for his depravity. Furthermore, it makes killers happy to kill-just like it makes homosexual males happy to have sex with men.
When BK makes an ad that says they support straight marriage I might buy a burger from them. Doubtful, but still.
There’s a needed phone app:
Tell the app what you what causes you want to support and what causes you want to avoid.
The app will keep track of businesses on your side and those on the side you want to boycot.
It could even warn you if you’re about to go behind enemy lines.
Mmmmmmmm......microwaved lettuce and tomato!!!!! Mmmmmmm...
Somebody just got handed a new title for a gay porn movie.
Frankly, I think you give too much credit to homosexuals even putting them in the category of “just not enough social moray guidance.”
Saying there isn’t something wrong with their brain when they cram a Gerbil up their keester is not something a ‘normal’ functioning brain considers. Not even.
Whatever drives the impulse, deformity, imbalance, psychotic trauma, the thing they have in common is self-guilt and an insatiable desire to rebel and lash out. Force it (the lifestyle, their ‘rights’, etc.) down their damned throats - screw ‘society’.
Additionally, the perversion and deviancy does not achieve some equilibrium - escalation to wilder crazier things can occur....
To me, it is a disease and one that can’t be cured by marrying, homosexual couple adoptions, or ‘rainbow’ Whoppers. You know, all the things they’re fighting for while they’ve completely subverted those social morays that used to be there.
It's been a long time since I've been in a BK, or a McD. For lunch, I just bring leftovers from home. On a road trip, it's cheaper to bring a small cooler with coldcuts and cheese.
No matter how they wrap it, the BK Lounge still processes their third world “meat” with ammonia and makes me sick.
2nd Vote
Is an app that is close to that
BKs commercials started making me feel grimy inside years ago. Decided to never buy from them again. They seemed to tone it down for a little while and now this - probably doing a K-Mart/Penney’s thing and trying to find a way to go full-blown homosexual (you can decide it it’s a pun) and still keep a viable customer base.
That’s great, right? Well it’s great if you’re Burger King. Now 4.3 million people (and counting) are going to have a positive image of your brand. Burger King isn’t only a fast food chain—they’re an ally They care.
Amazing and actual number versus a ‘percentage’.
Now as for me I’m looking forward to seeing what the ‘fruits’ of this advertising campaign really are for Burger King. My own personal guess is that it will be a disaster in the making if they make this a nationwide ad campaign.
How many ‘straights’ are just going to shrug their shoulders once again and say ‘see! look at me! I’m tolerant.’ As far as I can see there aren’t too many more Americans lining up anymore to buy into that.
On an anecdotal note, I was visiting a nearby city last week, the Burger King drive-through had only a couple of cars in it. The Wendy’s had a double drive-through operating at maximum capacity. My personal guess is that Wendy’s is benefiting more from Burger King’s Gay Whopper than Burger King is.
If Burger King wrapped their Whoppers in condoms, it would be just about as disturbing.
I no longer eat at the Burger Queen.
This is how I chose to, “Be My Way”
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