• Name pulled from a Facebook group I found recently that says its purpose is to:

• ...violently lament the spiritual violence that is marketing, especially when it shambles across your social media feed doing a bad impression of a real person...
• 2025-05-25 think it’s also a popular tumblr. def been around longer than i’ve heard it.

• It's for examples of companies advertising in a way that's supposed to be, IDK, hip and sardonic and meme-ified, like this absolutely atrocious Sour Patch Kids post: [UNABLE TO LOCATE EMBED]
• This kind of weirdly self-deprecating / feigned incompetence / forced relatability / gen z slang overload is so tired already. Like, in the Sour Patch Kids ad, the entire joke is that you don't know what you're doing, but you do know what "fr" means 😎
• In reality, you know this post has been sitting in a carefully curated content calendar, went through several rounds of revisions and approvals, was likely created in industry-leading graphic design software, etc etc etc. WHY ARE WE ENGAGING WITH THIS??? WHY DO WE THINK IT'S FUNNY WHEN THEY LIE TO US??? They are not our friends!
• I want to say that I know it isn't ""that deep"", but I actually feel like it is.
• Sour Patch Kids is made by Mondelez International, AKA Kraft's new name for its snack food arm. According to wikipedia, their annual revenue is $26.5 billion, landing them at 108 on the Fortune 500 list in 2021. They employ 80K people. Their other brands include Chips Ahoy, Clif, Oreo, Philadelphia (as in the cream cheese), Ritz, Tang, Triscuit, Wheat Thins...
• This is a company that's been accused of child slavery, but, hey, they know that Comic Sans resume padding is funny!
• Am I just super out of touch with this?
• I think it's so interesting that young ppl are becoming so much more aware of brand manipulation, they're more interested in voting with their wallets, but as soon as a mega-corp slaps "yeet" or whatever into their ad creative they're suddenly absolved under the guise of "relatability".
• BSFFRRN, as the kids say.
• connect this to digital literacy article from hapgood
• The NotMayo ad is good, though. | 2024-03-30
  • Okay, now I have an extra bone to pick with Kraft, lol. They were part of making this “NotMayo” ad; NotMayo is a dairy-free mayonnaise alternative. Instead of a traditional taste test, the got a bunch of people who hate mayonnaise and got their reactions to trying NotMayo. It’s smart and fun and entertaining.
  • I realize the same people don’t work across both brands, and I’m not saying that this type of ad would work for a brand like Sour Patch Kids. But how do you have such a disparity in quality??
  • I just think it’s interesting that the same parent company created an ad I actually love and an ad I absolutely hate in the same month, lol.
  • Also, does this count as anti-marketing and selling online?
• Yay Denver, Boo Opera | 2024-06-23
  • Saw two different gimmicky business things last night — one I love, and one I hate.
  • I saw a video about this and thought it was recent, but apparently it’s from 2018. Denver Airport was under construction and they leaned pretty hard into the internet conspiracy theories about what goes on there.
  • See pictures, etc., here.
  • The banners are goofy and self-aware, but the link included on all of them goes to basic facts about the airport — both feel like the right approach. Jokingly addressing the rumors, while making sure to only provide facts to people interested enough to follow the link. I love it.
  • Right after seeing the Denver vid, I saw that Opera GX partnered with the boys (and GrubHub??) for a…. IDK, a browser with a different skin?? It looks like the “Vought” browser has the same features as the regular Opera GX except for a “Vought Corner", which is actually pretty neat, but could have just been a website?
  • I had such a visceral reaction to the trailer. Who is this for? I’m a big fan of the show (and gaming, and enjoyed Opera GX when I tried it), but it feels so… tacky. I can’t even put my finger on it — maybe because the two brands seem to have nothing to do with each other? So I’m left just wondering why it’s a thing?
  • I might have thought it was gimmicky but cute if they hadn’t included the GrubHub voucher. Instead of feeling like a nod from fellow fans (like the Denver thing feels IMO), it feels like the entire point was to boost their GrubHub affiliate income. I get that they’re poking fun at Vought, but a random partnership all about slapping a celeb’s face on products unnecessarily to sell something unrelated feels like a very unironically Vought thing to do 🤔
  • Maybe I’m just a curmudgeon, who knows
• 2025-01-19 Think it’s a trend in marketing to subvert expectations of brand promise… {1.2a1a2a2} a brand is a promise of consistency and dependability.