Microsoft Slammed For Sexist Xbox One Ad

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Can one of you guys point out what is so "insanely" sexist and offensive about this customizable letter from Microsoft? Has no one seen the awesome "boyfriend, get me a beer" ad?

Microsoft has apologized for the wording in this ad and is currently taking steps to change it. The company sent the following statement to Eurogamer: “The letter is fully customizable and we meant no offense, but understand how the defaults could be perceived. We're making changes to the letter defaults and apologize for the oversight.”
 
LOL. My wife actually likes to knit, and she's not a fan of video games. Either way - it's an ad. Those who are offended - get over yourselves.
 
I think some people just like to trying to find something sexist or racist about anything.

The people being sexist are the ones that jump to thinking that is from the male perspective. I know plenty of females that would work for where they like video games and their boyfriend / husband / girlfriend doesn't.

That is like when Oreo made watermelon oreos special for a month for summer and people started to scream they were being racist and trying to target African Americans.
 
I think some people just like to trying to find something sexist or racist about anything.

The people being sexist are the ones that jump to thinking that is from the male perspective. I know plenty of females that would work for where they like video games and their boyfriend / husband / girlfriend doesn't.

That is like when Oreo made watermelon oreos special for a month for summer and people started to scream they were being racist and trying to target African Americans.

Did they have an ad with a bunch of black people in the hood eating fried chicken with said ad (if there was an ad)? :D

Actually - this reminds me of a McDonalds commercial I saw. It involved the Southern Chicken Sandwhich or whatever it's called, and a black family. The black men of the house were like "hey, we're hungry," and the grandma looked at the young girl and said "go give it to 'em girl." The commercial faded out with what I think was a barber-shop quartet singing the "bada-ba-ba-baaa" (thanks Justin Timberlake - you fuckwad) anthem. I've never seen the commercial after that one viewing, and I can't find it on YouTube either. Gee - wonder why? :rolleyes:

On second note - if anyone knows what I'm talking about and can dig up a link, that would be awesome.
 
Did they have an ad with a bunch of black people in the hood eating fried chicken with said ad (if there was an ad)? :D

Actually - this reminds me of a McDonalds commercial I saw. It involved the Southern Chicken Sandwhich or whatever it's called, and a black family. The black men of the house were like "hey, we're hungry," and the grandma looked at the young girl and said "go give it to 'em girl." The commercial faded out with what I think was a barber-shop quartet singing the "bada-ba-ba-baaa" (thanks Justin Timberlake - you fuckwad) anthem. I've never seen the commercial after that one viewing, and I can't find it on YouTube either. Gee - wonder why? :rolleyes:

On second note - if anyone knows what I'm talking about and can dig up a link, that would be awesome.

No, they just mentioned how the flavor of summer was here. I can't find any video on youtube for this either right now.

Anyone else really tired with people getting offended at everything?

Yes.
 
Anyone else really tired with people getting offended at everything?

People with nothing to actually contribute themselves like to get attention by announcing they are offended.

But yes, very tired of this environment which seems to imply we should somehow craft a world free of things which anyone could possibly find offensive.

To this issue specifically:
There are absolutely real issues of sexism, but when guys like the author (yes, a man) moan and wring their little hands over every damn little and completely forgettable incident, real issues lose their weight. We're bombarded by whiny people writing tirades over every perceived transgression which just drowns out the sane voice pointing out a REAL problem worth our concern.
 
A middle age white man and other middle aged white men on a forum saying this is not sexist?
Since when did Hardocp become reddit?
 
I think some people just like to trying to find something sexist or racist about anything.

Are you kidding? That ad is absolutely sexist, I'm kind of surprised it got published in the first place. Then again, I guess it's doing its job, as it's getting talked about. Now Microsoft issues the apology (which they did), and tweak the ad, but it's already got the attention it wanted.

Anyone else really tired with people getting offended at everything?

Sure, but in this case the use of "offended" was an addition by Steve, not the source. The source just talks about the ad being sexist and regressive (which it clearly is), not that his precious little feelings were hurt. So your complaint should be directed to [email protected]
 
A middle age white man and other middle aged white men on a forum saying this is not sexist?
Since when did Hardocp become reddit?
I find that question both racist and sexist towards white men, lol. :D
 
Anyone else really tired with people getting offended at everything?

DF/Eurogamer lost all relevance in my opinion after the incompetence displayed with the XBO capture. I don't think anything they do actually matters anymore. That they're riding the hipster h8wagon to ridicule MS is just... RIP DF/Eurogamer.
 
Are you kidding? That ad is absolutely sexist, I'm kind of surprised it got published in the first place. Then again, I guess it's doing its job, as it's getting talked about. Now Microsoft issues the apology (which they did), and tweak the ad, but it's already got the attention it wanted.



Sure, but in this case the use of "offended" was an addition by Steve, not the source. The source just talks about the ad being sexist and regressive (which it clearly is), not that his precious little feelings were hurt. So your complaint should be directed to [email protected]

What is sexist about it? YOU are putting the sexist slant on it if you only view that as being aimed at a woman. As I stated above I know plenty of female gamers that could use that.

I used to play games every weekend with a group of people. One woman had a boyfriend that didn't like games or like any "geeky" stuff. Another was a married woman who's husband didn't game. One was a woman that had a girlfriend that didn't game... So they could use something like that as they always had to talk their partners into them buying something game related.
 
The title of this thread is offensive for strong wording.

"Microsoft Slammed For Sexist Xbox One Ad"

:D
 
Well it's "sexist" in the sense its clearly targeted at one sex over the other... and that matters, why?

I honestly can't imagine why anyone would be offended by this, if they are, they should be forcibly removed from society.
 
omg cortexodus!! that is awesome. haah I can't believe i'm an aussie and havnt heard of Mr S.H.!! awesome stuff!! haha
 
Why is it a problem that it's sexist? The type of person who would be offended by something like this, probably doesn't buy game consoles anyway.
 
The ad had "defaults" that were pre-filled to be a letter written from a man to a woman. Without them, it's pretty innocuous and could obviously be used by pretty much anybody in a relationship.

I get the feeling that it was deliberately click bait, then "fixed" by simply removing the default terms and leaving it completely blank instead.
 
It was probably done intentionally and made to seem like a mistake to generate additional press. Negative attention used to make positive results with sales works really well in many cases because the average male shopper doesn't stop to consider the possibility of deceptive sales tactics.
 
Microsoft should have just grown a pair and turned the tables on the complainers saying that there's nothing sexist or even mentioning genders in the ad. I found it funny. Slightly. But not offensive.
 
Another never ending battle with discrimination/sexism. As society and culture evolves so does what falls in and out of these categories. We have virtually eliminated (In the western world) the barbaric treatment of women, minorities (slaves), gays. It only exists predominately in some religions/cultures. So now all we the minorities have are really non-relevant HEADLINE grabbing stories. We campaign on the small offenses, yet rarely celebrate the game changers. Does discrimination, sexism still exist? Yes. I'd rather tackle a real case of it rather than a stupid game ad that simply was done in poor taste.
 
The ad had "defaults" that were pre-filled to be a letter written from a man to a woman. Without them, it's pretty innocuous and could obviously be used by pretty much anybody in a relationship.

I get the feeling that it was deliberately click bait, then "fixed" by simply removing the default terms and leaving it completely blank instead.

That is different then to a small degree. When I went to the page it was full of blanks, nothing was filled in so I never saw anything wrong with it and thought the issue was the you could fill in the blanks and make it be from a male to a female. And that people were just assuming without any reason that was how it was meant to be.
 
Microsoft should have just grown a pair and turned the tables on the complainers saying that there's nothing sexist or even mentioning genders in the ad.

It would have been awesome if they did. Because you could argue that it is following gender stereotypes... but since they didn't actually mention a gender, it's entirely the community inferring the gender stereotype, lol. So really, if anyone is offended, they're to blame, as they're the ones who inferred the sexist meaning. :D
 
Anyone else really tired with people getting offended at everything?

Yes! It's stupid and idiotic. Microsoft is making a huge mistake by jumping whenever some numbskull says, "hop." Makes the company look weak and indecisive. Was it Lincoln who first said:

"You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time"...? " Words of wisdom....Words of Wis-dom, Lloyd my man...!" (Paraphrased from Jack Nicholson in "The Shining.")

Companies should ignore people like this as if they don't exist--they're just looking for an issue to bring attention to themselves, nothing more. Such people are trolls.
 
I think some people just like to trying to find something sexist or racist about anything.

The people being sexist are the ones that jump to thinking that is from the male perspective. I know plenty of females that would work for where they like video games and their boyfriend / husband / girlfriend doesn't.

That is like when Oreo made watermelon oreos special for a month for summer and people started to scream they were being racist and trying to target African Americans.

Heh, you know what sounds REALLY racist to me? That "African American" bullshit. What the fuck does that mean? Do you call all other races [placeholder]-Americans, too?
 
Heh, you know what sounds REALLY racist to me? That "African American" bullshit. What the fuck does that mean? Do you call all other races [placeholder]-Americans, too?
Don't people do that a lot? Like, call someone Italian-American or some such? I've heard the term "Pennsylvania-Dutch" thrown around a lot in this area. Americans seem to like to identify with where they came from.
 
(or identify other people with where they came from, lol).
 
They used lots of stereotypes for this one. People never really call men 'beautiful,' do they?;)

They knew it would be considered sexist.

Might as well have just started it with "Hey woman, I know you'd rather cook me dinner than watch me slay zombies."

I honestly don't know how hate marketing works. Why would this help sales? "Have you heard about that Xbox One ad? I really hated it. Let's go buy a Xbox to spite them."
 
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