Microsoft Quickly Revises "Sexting" Ad For Kin Phone 298
theodp writes "Microsoft's Kin mobile phone project came under fire as Consumer Reports and others pointed out that a promotional video looked like an inappropriate endorsement of 'sexting,' prompting a quick edit and an apologetic tweet. 'The video,' observed Consumer Reports, 'includes a downright creepy sequence [beginning around 0:33] in which a young man is shown putting a Kin under his shirt and apparently snapping a picture of one of his naked breasts. The breast is then shown on the phone's screen, just before the guy apparently sends it to someone. Next we see the face of a young woman, seemingly the recipient, with an amused expression...'"
LOLwut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uptight much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh good lord, how uptight does our society need to be?
It's a contradiction too, because sexualized youth seems to be perfectly acceptable as long as it's from a Mickey Mouse Club alumni that promises abstinence.
Fucking Puritans (Score:5, Insightful)
People have bodies.. get over it.
Sexting is a "phenomena" of prudes having to face the fact that not everyone experiences the same reservations as them about nudity. No-one is forcing them to participate.
Re:LOLwut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I could see a problem if it were a female breast ... but who the fuck thinks that sending a picture of a male breast is "sexting"?
If they think a man's bare chest is in any way a private part or constitutes nudity, then I imagine these prudes would have a heart attack if they went to any beach.
Why is this even an issue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:LOLwut? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I could see a problem if it were a female breast ... but who the fuck thinks that sending a picture of a male breast is "sexting"?
Women? Gay people?
This commercial (Score:3, Insightful)
Never mind the MOOBS this commercial is worse than the one with Bill wiggling his ass. You can tell some 70's Microsoft Hippie Chick manager wrote and produced it, total fail.
Whats the Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean it wouldnt be something I do, but both persons involved seem to be grown-ups, in a perfectly concious state, and it seems to be funny to both (for whatever reason). To me the complete scene is as cryptic as the idea why i would buy a phone from Microsoft; maybe this is just to show that the phone does not have real features going beyond an arbitrary cameraphone from 5years ago (but *with touch*). Overall the video seems to aim at people around 25 i would say.
So i dont understand if that is "sexting", i dont understand what the word exactly means (it seems diffuse), i dont see why i would complain about adults (male or female) sending pictures of breasts to other adults (as long as both sides are fine with it). But i think nodoby should complain by depicting seemingly funny things in an advertisement, even if the people in it act highly irrational.
I am actually more annoyed by advertisments still exhibiting old gender role models.
Re:Fucking Puritans (Score:1, Insightful)
The thing that's fucked up about this is the criminal prosecution of minors for creating child pornography sending it to other minors. In many cases, there would have been no charges if they had just had sex, but I guess minors
sending each other nudies is far worse.
Re:Uptight much? (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit. Considering how often we hear about porn moving technology, how big 'The Valley' is, and so forth, can we please shed this neo-Puritanical bullshit in the US?
Guess what: normal, healthy people like to fuck. Normal, healthy people (especially men) like to look at other normal, healthy people. Just because your version of the FSM said it was all "eww, icky, gross" does not mean the rest of us should suffer.
Re:LOLwut? (Score:2, Insightful)
Weirdo QotD: In 100 years, would male nipples be considered private if we started wearing bras/tops today?
Re:LOLwut? (Score:1, Insightful)
Weirdo QotD: In 100 years, would male nipples be considered private if we started wearing bras/tops today?
Probably. Ever see National Geographic shows? There are primitive tribes in very warm, tropical areas where the women frequently or always are topless. None of the males in the tribe seem to think anything of it.
Re:LOLwut? (Score:4, Insightful)
As mentioned elsewhere, male breasts are generally not considered a private part, regardless of who they are attractive for.
Which is clearly a cultural and societal double-standard that topfree-rights advocates oppose. Of course back in my day, males didn't have breasts, they had pecs.
Lets use this example: Is a pierced male nipple somehow less sexual than a pierced female nipple, purely because a man can display his chest freely? The result and motivation for the wearer is arguably the same regardless of gender or sexual preference. Sexy is whatever gets you hot, not what a ratings board or a family advocate group says.
Re:"our society"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because society B is far more ridiculous than society A, does not mean society A is not itself ridiculous.
Black man and white woman kissing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Back when I was young that would have been the controversy, not a white dudes nipple.
So from that point of view I think we are making progress.
Creepy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Creepy? Really? What exactly is 'creepy' about it?
Unless you mean 'likely to make a large section of the population feel uneasy because they've been cowed into a pathetic state of guilt and self-censorship in the face of a narrow-minded and hypocritical moral hysteria of a small minority'. Yeh you're right, that is creepy.
Re:Fucking Puritans (Score:5, Insightful)
"Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." - Henry Mencken
Re:Uptight much? (Score:3, Insightful)
But in the real world there are rules. And the biggest rule is, and should be, that we are in control of our own bodies and the depictions of our own bodies. The next biggest rule is a most kids are not often making long term decisions. How many of us ditched high school to go have some fun. Such decisions are not death, and the there is nothing wrong with taking naked pictures as kids have been doing for years. These pictures have even gotten passed around. What happens now is it becomes very easy to lose control of those images and negative consequences can be long term. Therefore most parents want to limit the possibility that their kids will do such things, and if a phone seems to be centered on sending pictures, perhaps the parent won't buy it. It is not that anyone things that phones are not used to take and send such pictures, no one is that stupid, it is just, IMHO, few people would buy a phone advertised as such activity being the primary purpose, as appeared to be in the MS video. Likewise, I think most parents would not buy their kids a subscription to Adult Friend Finder, even though online dating is likely going to play a big part in any kids future. There is just no reason to emphasize casual sex at that age.
Re:This commercial (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Have you ever heard the saying "all publicity is good publicity?"
I'm not going that far, but for creating a "controversial" ad likely on the cheap they have half the Internet talking about it and their product, one way or another. My exposure to the Kin is now one TV commercial and one Internet conversation on Slashdot. One cost them a little money and one was completely free.
I don't know if it was intentional. I doubt it matters. The reality is they just got hundreds of thousands of dollars of free advertising as everybody on the Internet and half the people on conventional "news" programs mention their product's name. Free.
Total fail? No.
Re:Uptight much? (Score:1, Insightful)
Fun fact: The God of the neo-Puritans you quote as saying "eww, icky, gross" not only endorses sex, he commands it. "Be fruitful and reproduce."
It's a far cry between "voyeurism ain't good" and "eww, icky, gross".
Besides, even if sexting is relatively common, that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. It's the kind of thing that can come back and haunt you months or years later. Why should we be promoting it?
Sex is healthy; narcissism isn't. You seem to be confusing the two.
Re:LOLwut? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets use this example: Is a pierced male nipple somehow less sexual than a pierced female nipple, purely because a man can display his chest freely?
Yes.
Re:"our society"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Sure, but those prudes aren't hypocrites who act like the only bastion of freedom in the world.
Re:This keeps happening (Score:3, Insightful)
That's exactly what I thought. As far as I can tell it was ONE blogger who only said that there was something a bit creepy about the ad. Nobody would have noticed or cared until MS publicly withdrew the ad and apologized, at which point every single news outlet picked up the story in a way that's mostly sympathetic to MS and its new phone. Whether it was accidental or deliberate it worked out pretty well for Microsoft.
Quick edit? (Score:5, Insightful)
prompting a quick edit and an apologetic tweet.
How quick was it? Was it so quick, that you'd think they had the edit prepared in advance, just waiting for the "outrage"?
Come on guys, those are old, old tricks.
So, anyway, Microsoft have a new mobile device again with a hip ad again, awkward name again, that's trying to compete with a similar device from Apple again. Best of luck to them.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Re:MOOBS!? MOOBS! (Score:3, Insightful)
I.. hope you're joking.
If not, I have news for you. Every phone that has ever advertised that it is easy to take pictures is a phone that has advertised the exact same thing. Unless, of course, the process of sending those pictures has been some arcane ritual that can only take place on the third minute of the seventh hour the day after your first born takes its first breath. Which is probably not the case.
What you take pictures of and how easy it is to take them are separate issues. If it is easy to take a picture of your dog, it is also easy to take a picture of a naked person. But I don't see any outrage over the iPhone's photo taking process, which is also pretty simple. Ditto the lack of outrage over Android, Motorola, LG, Samsung ...
If it is the content of the advert in question, where is the outrage for the endless commercials (read: porn) depicting bare chested men pushing beer, beach vacation spots, travel reservations, antiperspirants, body wash, exercise or diet programs, or whatever else. The damage such lewd imagery does to the children!
Moral panic, or simply false advertising? (Score:1, Insightful)
Really, what Consumer Reports _should_ have been attacking is the misleading suggestion that the Kin's camera has advanced low-light capabilities that allow it to take a clear picture of a breast while shrouded by a shirt in a dark club.
Otherwise, as a firm believer in the literal honesty of all marketing, I might be horribly disappointed when my new Kin (purchased for that express purpose, based on watching the commercial) failed to snap crystal clear naked photos of my neighbor when I held it up to her darkened bedroom window in the middle of the night.
This is clearly grounds for a class action suit on behalf of peeping toms everywhere.
Re:Fucking Puritans (Score:1, Insightful)
If society got rid of the stupid idea that sex/nudity is shameful, no one would care that there's an image of their genitals on the internet somewhere, it won't haunt anyone
Re:LOLwut? (Score:5, Insightful)
She looks nice. She's got a beautiful face and body. But I bet you didn't see that, focused as you were on her breasts.
Why is this an issue? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uptight much? (Score:3, Insightful)
He also says not to wear cotton-poly blends. Forgive me if I'll take his advice with a grain of salt.
Re:LOLwut? (Score:5, Insightful)
And here are some examples of Europeans freedom of speech:
Pat Condell http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell [youtube.com]
Nigel Farage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bypLwI5AQvY [youtube.com]
Nick Griffin http://bnp.org.uk/ [bnp.org.uk]
Sure Europe has twats, like Nick Griffin, crying about their rights being trampled on but the mere fact he can hang out with the David Duke, hasn't been stopped for his comments on Muslims and has been allowed to even participate in politics says to me that European free speech is doing fine.
Gun laws aren't even as restrictive as some Americans make out. Very few countries ban guns out right. Even the NRA has stated that, for instance, 10% of Austrians own hand guns compared to 16% of Americans. http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=72 [nraila.org]
I do support the freedom to own guns and don't think own even automatics should be completely out of the question (though it should be quite hard to get them) but I understand why the laws exist and in a free society if vast majority do agree with the laws then where is the issue with the law? Some people value things differently. The Japanese may think the US is odd for not having public baths but that doesn't necessarily make the US wrong (or right).
There are some limits to freedom of speech just as there are some limits in the US and every other country. Europe is by no means perfect but the US certainly isn't either and it isn't
The point (Score:5, Insightful)
While the ad only showed a mans chest, that is not the point of the controversy.
The point is that the ad was basically advocating sexting.
I am pretty sure no one was mad about the ad containing a males chest.
Re:Uptight much? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the kind of thing that can come back and haunt you months or years later.
But ONLY in the puritanical society described. If it wasn't a big deal to begin with, then it also wouldn't be a big deal to be able to "come back and haunt you".
Re:LOLwut? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because everyone knows that European countries have a centuries-long history of not horribly killing people for showing any kind of deviance what-so-ever.
It's bad when the prudes leave your continent to seek more freedom.
Re:Uptight much? (Score:3, Insightful)
So basically it sounds like someone bending the word of "God" to really just be a way of telling other people what to do/not to do and that the divine word isn't really divine after all.
Re:Why is this even an issue? (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be easier to tell it's a parody if it actually contained some humor instead of mean spirited ranting.
It would be harder to do a parody if it weren't for humorous mean-spirited ranting.
Re:The point (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it wasn't and the fact that you and them believe it does shows your immaturity and the fact that you are uncomfortable with the human body.
Grow the fuck up, people.
When the phone was announced Microsoft said its target market was teenagers. Would you want your teenage daughter to be so comfortable with her body that everyone at her high school has her tits on their phone?
If this weren't a cellphone commercial with teenagers as the target market there would be no controversy, but it is. The whole point of the advertisement is to showcase the device's capabilities and about the only thing they do with it is take a picture of a guy's chest and send it out. The clear implication is that the phone is great for "sexting."