Beer Bud Light apologizes for promoting ''rape culture''

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/28/no-means-up-for-whatever-according-to-the-latest-bud-light-slogan/

http://archive.is/xGqqa#selection-1391.18-1391.27

The tag-line ''Up For Whatever'' on a brand of Beer, Buzz-Light has led to outrage on social media that it promotes a ''rape culture'' and is inconsiderate of sexual abuse victims who say ''no means no''.

Perhaps this is legit, or just another politician trying to get the attention of youth. Congress Woman and senior Democrat Nita Lowey also expressed dissatisfaction at the tag-line.

They knew what they were doing.. This controversy is just free promotion for their product.

Oh, for ****'s sake...

Triple facepalm for both sides...

Sorry, is there a commercial they ran where a woman is sexually assaulted?

If I say I'm up for whatever, do I need to clarify that I'm cool for either the bar or mini golf, but not rape?

More whining for the sake of whining, if you ask me.

@darkspineslayer: Plus, we all know that if someone is wanting to rape someone else, they look at beer bottles labels for moral support.

@korvus: @darkspineslayer: What I wonder, is where will this all lead to? The offendatrons attack a Scientist's T-Shirt, attack fashion magaines, fitness companies, etc. It NEVER ends, no matter what it is - when will this shit end? How insane can it get?

I mean come on... that is pretty fucking bad.

@Aljosa23: Yeah, it was a stupid idea but anyone who's not trying to start crap can tell they meant drinking their beer would make you up for fun and not reject offers to do "cool stuff"...it doesn't mean "ignore her when she says no".

@harisinghnalwa: The more success they have the worse it'll get. Then again my opinion on these matters is generally unpopular...like when I said that when people quit Twitter because of threats that just emboldens the assholes to do it to someone else. Took a lot of flack for that comment, people said I was "victim blaming".

@korvus: I know what they meant to say. They just picked an unfortunate way to say it lol. They apologized and are changing the tagline. No harm, no foul.

@Aljosa23: "We're so sorry, we had a few too many and couldn't say no to the advertisement guy..."

Seems like a really poor choice of words, happens all the time. I saw orange juice for sale labelled "innocent children's juices" does that mean Sainsbury's are promoting pedo culture? No it's just an oversight. Although in this case a pretty damn obvious one.

It's less of a stretch when you're talking about a link between booze and date rape, though. The tag line would be a poor choice of words on any product, but stick it on an alcoholic beverage and it's a perfect storm of bad judgement.

-Byshop

What does this rape culture mean? I never understood the concept.

Eh Bud sucks anyway.

That's what I meant with that last line. I get that it's an oversight but it was so obvious, they really couldn't have put much thought into it.

I wonder how many people are actually involved in this process, it's hard to believe that not one of them made the connection.

Dos Equis is better. As for the tag line, whatever. Feminists are being triggered by it, and thats always a good thing. Stay salty, professional victims.

...Yeah, that is three kinds of messed up.

Exactly this. People in this country have it so good they have to find meaningless things to complain about including a tag line that is clearly associated with their well known commercials which in no way promote rape.

i can see where they're coming from but actually trying to tie this to "rape culture" is silly.

maybe if the tagline was "the perfect beer for remove "no" from your victim's vocabulary for the night" they'd have a point

Not to make light of rape but I feel that if you drink Bud Light you're being raped to begin with. There are so many good beers out there please don't drink piss passed off as beer. Taking Budweiser off the market through poor sales is the best way to stop these dumbass Bud commercials permanently.

Definitely sounds "rapey"

Exactly. All the useless shit that Americans bitch about just reinforces how much better we have it than most of our fellow humans living in far shittier places. It's like the ultimate first world problem.

"I'm not a racist, but I'm totally about to act like a racist."

Is it a poor choice of words or is this just a sign from an easily triggered society? I'm going for the latter. Honestly, a few of you could use a few Bud Lights if you know what I mean. *wink wink*

Seeing as how the company actually felt the need to apologize, I'm going with the former.

If the people who had a problem weren't the one's paying money, then by all means...call the complainers thin-skinned sissies and keep doing whatever it is that you do.

However, if you're asking people to give you money, then it doesn't matter if you were in the wrong. What matters is that your customers THINK you were in the wrong.

I don't drink beer but I'm up for whatever.

ugh modern feminists.

this.

@korvus said:

Oh, for ****'s sake...

Triple facepalm for both sides...

Make that Quadriple!

They hold rape events. Check your local authorities.

@harisinghnalwa: "beer"

When I first read that slogan I thought of pot.

Feminists have pervy minds.

lol

Yep, someone should have caught on to that before it launched.

Indeed. They could have worded that much better.

No one should be drinking Bud Light in the first place. It's just not good.

I seriously laughed at that because I thought it was a Photoshop and then I clicked on the article and I saw that it's the actual beer bottle and that Bud actually did that. How did this slogan make its way up the chain? Yikes.

Eh. Companies apologize all the time for things, regardless if they're wrong or not. They just don't want the bad PR to cost them sales. All it takes is one person making a stink and getting enough people to complain about it to get the company to change. Speaking of beer, this is just like Irrational Games when they tweeted their picture to celebrate National Cleavage Day. People bitched about it not really understanding what the day was for, and IG buckled and apologized. A fraction of women bitched about Target carrying GTA V, they complained and the store pulled the game, despite the fact that still carry and sell just as many offensive video games and movies. The only reason why they still sell those other items is because no one bothered to bitch about those.

If you ask me, there's nothing wrong with the wording at all. This refers to YOUR inhibitions, not the person you're giving the beer to, and those inhibitions don't even have to apply to sex. Now, had it been like like "The perfect beer to remove the word 'no' from her vocabulary," then sure, yeah. We have a case. But people are being too easily offended by this, forcing an issue into an otherwise ambiguous. Sure, it's easy to see how someone COULD come to the conclusion that this slogan promotes rape culture, but they don't HAVE to come to that conclusion and there's no reason everyone has to. It's like the person who designed the Washington Monument didn't intend for people to think of a giant erection.

I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to Bud, because I honestly don't think a company would be that stupid in their marketing to suggest that their beer is the perfect alcoholic beverage to attribute to the rape of someone. Unfortunately, some people have jumped to that conclusion and the only thing Bud could do was apologize, not because they were wrong, but because the bad press just isn't worth it.

It was an inadequate choice of words considering how often people are raped while intoxicated and the social movement to enforce the idea that "no" literally means "no," and the stories of individuals saying no while intoxicated then getting raped.

Complicating things is when people consent verbally, yet claim rape after, but that is a separate issue.

meh, radfems find rape culture in everything...

"hey, I need to charge my phone, one second while I plug my charger into the wall socket"

"you mean wait for you to rape the wall socket with your phone charger???!!!!

"what?"

"those two things on your phone charger are the "male" end of your wall charger and the part you plug it into is known as a "female" end!!"

"wait, I wasn't going to rape anything..."

"in fact, since there's two "male" prongs you were going to gang-raping the poor wall socket, you fucking men are all the same and should have your balls cut off"

Wow, that's impressively bad. What kind of a moron approved this tagline? You lose at the game of job.

Fucking hilarious, they should have kept it.

Oh well, I drink Miller anyways.

Lots of pro-rape ITT. Don't you care? Instead of one regulated warning on the drink there should be two. That will handcuff the patriarchy.

and, if anybody should apologize for bona fide "rape culture", it should be the Catholic Church...

What were they thinking?!?

This has to be deliberate. There's no way that a company this large wouldn't pick this up in market testing.

It worked, too. You guys are lapping it up.

It's actually really clever, when you think about it. It's controversial enough that people who aren't in their core market (some feminist groups) will make a fuss about it. This fuss inevitably means that their core market (dudebro men) will pick up on it, tell all of their dudebro friends about it, spread the word far and wide, and potentially even support the company more for it.

So...it taps into the current feminist/anti-feminist media frenzy, while maintaining plausible debiability. Promoting and protecting their public image at the same time. Great stuff!

Well, there is that ^^^^ explanation.

I will just go with "they unintentionally fucked up".

If the shit that you say causes you to lose sales, then it IS a poor choice of words. It doesn't even matter if the public completely misunderstood you, it is STILL a poor choice of words on your part. As the one selling a product to the public, it's your responsibility to understand your customer base and correctly anticipate the effect that your words have on sales.

If Bud thought that the wording was potentially damaging enough to sales for them to have to apologize, then yes there is something wrong with the wording.

I had a reply to you, but for some reason, it's not here. Must have glitched. I'm not going to spend the time to type it up again. Basically, I still don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that statement, and I do not believe apologizing automatically makes Bud wrong. Similar to arguing with your wife. You know you're right, but you don't feel it's worth the time and energy to argue thus you apologize.

Bad analogy, because in this case it would require less time and energy to say nothing. Apologizing actually takes more time and energy than doing nothing.

So why do they do it? Because they want people's money. And that's why they're wrong. If you're in a position where you're trying to convince people to give you their money, and if you say something that causes them to stop giving you their money, then there's a big freaking problem with whatever it is that you said.