Stone Brewing Co-Founder Apologizes for Misogynistic Tweets

"Hey boss, should I post this edgy-if-you're-fourteen but actually just kinda gross and dumb tweet to promote one of our key product lines?"

"Hmmm... should be a little more rapey, no?"

"On it!"

Stone is on some kinda hot streak these days.

 

**** is a thing that happens in real life. Like, frequently. And marketing is a thing that exists in real life. This tweet exists in real life. It's all real life, man. None of this stuff exists in some abstract world that can simply be dismissed as "not real". It's all real.

 

So, we're all supposed to pretend we have been outraged for years? Or, maybe pretend we didn't know about this and are now suddenly outraged?

I've objected to this junior high frat-boy "humor" in craft beer for years, but to equate it with sexual assault is just stupid.

 

Frat-boy humor and sexual innuendo aren't the issue (yet) if it's not what someone called "rapey".

 

After this I certainly won't buy Stone again, not for this situation alone but for numerous reasons over the past year or so (change to recipes, poor RVA brewery beers, the lawsuit announcement). Too many other breweries to choose from in today's market. I won't purchase another Melvin beer either, fwiw.

 

Yes, but it was decided to throw together power commands, sexual innuendo, and the idea that permission is optional together in an ad. Somehow no one looked at it and said, this might evoke something we [presumably] didn’t intend. It seems that once they got that message, they responded as appropriately as they could.

If it does evoke the [again, presumably] unintended concept of sexual abuse in people, should they just shut up and take it? Or should they point it out?

 

Yeah, honestly it should be legal. And to equate willing prostitution and obvious sexual assault (consent vs non consent) is pretty ridiculous

 

I love how we carefully parse things...

 

Exactly. To even have these thoughts is really screwed up, but to actually write them into the ether is beyond stupid. The guy didn't make a mistake, he proved he's an asshole.

 

Hopefully we can someday get back to worrying about real issues like whether people say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and which bathrooms people use at Target.

 

Is that seriously the O face from Office Space, priceless, yet tacky as shit on a beer bottle

 

Poor taste, bad judgement, immature, unprofessional...those are all descriptions that I would use to define this behavior. However, thinking a legitimate business (Pornography industry, excluded) is making a deliberate ploy to support/promote a culture of misogyny/abuse in a subversive/tongue-in-cheek manner is a bit suspect.

While Lenny Bruce did so much to break down societal walls by challenging the prudish mentality of the majority, the pendulum is now clearly swinging in the opposite direction of what seems to be the ever-increasing and tightening-of-the-belt world of political correctness (yet, high ranking politicians and celebrities get away with it seemingly, daily!)

By all indications, humor might soon be placed on the endangered species list and ultimately driven to premature extinction. Oh, the humanity!

 

I think the #metoo movement is biting some chunks out of the fratboy wet t-shirt beer crowd. Statements that may have made people uncomfortable but were tolerated are not so much now. This is not a bad thing.

 

I would say that a society in which we talk openly about sexual assault, ****, misogyny, etc, is a society that's less "politically correct", rather than more so. We are bringing to light what was once hidden from those not directly affected. If that means that certain jokes aren't as funny anymore, well, those jokes never were funny for a large segment of the population. The only difference now is that now those people are making their voices heard.

Thoughts and prayers to socially privileged people who are now being forced to confront their own self-centered shittiness that they were once able to ignore.

 

Thats all great, but the tweet does not talk of ****. Read it again and ask yourself who the ask permission part is directed at. Do you take it as the person who is getting blown or the person doing the blowing ?

 

Too many people get triggered and twist statements into things that offend them. The tweet does not promote or accept ****. It states that someone is getting blown and tells the blower to not ask permission and do it again. Not ****, sorry.

 

The company and its executive chairman already recognized the perceived tasteless angle and the unwanted, negative attention the tweet brought. Not a hill to die on.

 

Okay...I never expressed any opinion on prostitution. This doesn't really have anything to do with my point that people are not happy about a beer company making a joke that can easily be construed to be about ****. Thanks for showing me some tacky beer labels I guess...

 

I guess "Wut" is... what, exactly, if not asking about what I meant?

Also, nice job at parsing the topic. If the bar patron said the words on that label to a female server that would be OK with you?