First, watch this ad:
Steven Colbert talks about the ad here in his Tip of the Hat; Wag of the Finger segment.
Peter Gleick goes after the ad here: Is This the Most Anti-Science, Anti-Environmental TV Ad Ever?
Besides nature sucking, pink is for girls and gunnish things are for boys.
Feel free to rant below.
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or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
Those bastards!
I posted about his on my blog, with links to some online petitions for TRS to pull the ad, and links to some videos in response. Worth a look!
http://exploreportlandnature.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/monday-thought-of-the-week-the-woods-as-my-playground-petitions-about-anti-nature-ad-from-toysrus/
The answer to this isn’t to petition to pull the ad. That just lets them get away with it, and an apology after the fact is still getting away with it.
The answer to this is to encourage people to vote with their dollars, and vote NO on Toys R Us this year, and send postal mail to Toys R Us corporate HQ (print it out and sign it in ink) letting them know why you’re not shopping there.
That has teeth, to bite on Toys R Us on the bottom line, which is the only place that counts.
The answer is to leave it alone. It today’s pathetic, destructive, “I hate you for having different views . . . oh, but I’m NOT small minded but I’m still going to shut you down, get you fired, make you PAY” mentality, the answer is to just shut up. Girls actually DO like pink- gasp! Boys actually DO like guns- gasp! Kids also love science and are pushed to grow up too fast. The commercial should serve as a great reminder to let a kid be a kid and just play with toys from time to time. Spoiler Alert: Raising a child properly and instilling good values is the job of a parent, not a toy company or any other “arm chair angry mob” or Political Action Committee. So get a life.
You don’t have kids, right Ed?
Ed’s got three well-rounded kids two of whom are in honors programs. That’s the point: They’re not YOUR kids. So relax and let me do my job. Television commercials should be the least of your worries, parent or not.
So Ed can invest in his children’s future the way Ed wants to, and I have to invest in my children’s future … The way Ed wants me to. Sounds fair.
I’m with “G” above – leave it as a signpost of TrU’s stupidiy.
And frankly, I see it as a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with our society, where we’re so distracted by our toys we have only boredom to offer the rapidly disappearing natural world. And we haven’t even mentioned video games yet…
Ed, one of the points is that while YOU have three well-rounded kids, lots of people have kids who’s lives are roundly influenced by advertizing and the kind of pervasive consumer messaging we see here. Is it ok for companies to tell your kids “The natural world is unimportant – look at all this great stuff we have for sale!”? If so, I’d question your definition of “well-rounded”.
Unless Ed has an unfortunate name, his using (above) the name of a famous Wisconsin murderer (upon whom Robert Bloch loosely based his main character in Pyscho), one has to wonder about the veracity of his statement of having 3 normal kids.
Or Ed’s a troll, in which case ignore him.
There’s another reason to avoid Toys R Us: your local neighborhood toy store probably has a better selection of higher quality goods, and plenty of stuff that Toys R Us doesn’t carry.
Re. GregH re. video games: Recent research shows that not only violent video games, but video games in general, tend to produce antisocial attitudes in children. It would not be unreasonable to hypothesize that they could nudge vulnerable kids in the direction of antisocial personality disorder, which is already a dangerous psychiatric pandemic and barely gets attention in the media.
Grand Theft Auto is the epitome of antisocial attitudes. Giving children reward-points and other reinforcement for running down police officers with stolen cars, is reprehensible. The research is very clear about this: violent video games do nudge kids in the direction of antisocial personality. The “free speech” claims for this garbage are absurd on their face, like free speech claims for finger-painting in excrement on the public sidewalks.
BTW, does anyone here know how to get rid of (or modify) the pesky emoticons next to our names? The conflation of a pink triangle (Nazi symbol for gay prisoners in concentration camps) with a sourpuss frown is not exactly user-friendly to this user. (Nor do I post face-photos in public places any more: “Just say No” to Big Data tracking.)
I’ve breathed life into Toys R Us fictitious “Meet the Trees Foundation”. Take a look at: http://www.meetthetrees.org It is a roundup of the colossal outpouring of negative sentiment regarding TrU’s stupidity. If you like it, share with others.
Hey, I’m a mildly surprised hexagon.
I’m going to stick with my original assessment.
Well, aside from the fact that people from California don’t call it “cali,” using the name of an infamous murderer and grave robber of women is an unmistakable troll move.
Does that mean GL (aka Capt Planet) and the rest of the Planeteers support the Boy Scouts for educating so many on the great outdoors?
It’s shocking that a giant corporation that sells Chinese toys would encourage kids to get out of the woods and into the store. Should be the outrage of the year.
This seems way blown out of proportion and a really dumb reason to boycott Toys R Us. To those of you who boycott things because they don’t fit your immediate views, what exactly do you even shop or eat?
Personally, I’m not planning on boycotting Toys R Us.