Woke capitalism is busily destroying itself - "If you aren’t entirely comfortable with a world of gender fluidity, it seems, you have no right to start saving any money, and even less take out a loan to buy a home. It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened. When companies such as Vodafone were criticised for joining the GB News advertising boycott on the channel’s launch, the complaints were angrily shouted down by some of the firms’ social media teams. Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream company, has admittedly always had Left-leaning sympathies. But its Twitter account is engaged in an extraordinary row with Unilever, the company’s parent, over the question of selling ice cream in Israel. It hardly seems to matter whether the management of these companies is comfortable with the messages being pumped out on its behalf online. It appears to have abdicated power to a tiny group of activist employees so imbued with Twitter culture that they cannot recognise the difference between social media and the real world. And it’s part of a broader problem with woke capitalism, caused by companies paying far too much attention to the views of staff, and too little of customers. Disney, for example, has found its tax status in Florida under threat after some of its employees tried to turn the Magic Kingdom into the Woke Kingdom (or Person-dom, come to think of it) by campaigning on LGBT rights. Again and again, companies are finding themselves caught up in the culture wars, often forced into particular positions in an attempt to appease their Left-wing staff. There are two problems with that. The first is that there is no need for businesses to take a political position. If they can make a decent product at a fair price, and pay their staff and suppliers on time, that is more than enough of a social purpose. Everything else can be argued about elsewhere. The second is that, by handing control over to junior staff, it means private sector firms are falling for an affliction more commonly seen in the public sector. They are losing the art of customer service, and forgetting that respect for other people’s views, and tolerance of a wide range of political beliefs, is just common courtesy. They need to rein in the millennials."
Starbucks Closing Some Stores, Citing Safety Concerns in Certain Cafes - WSJ - "Starbucks Corp. said Monday that it is closing 16 U.S. stores after workers reported incidents related to drug use and other disruptions in cafes. Starbucks said it would permanently close six stores each in the Seattle and Los Angeles areas, two in Portland, Ore., and single locations in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. by the end of the month. The company said it received reports from workers about incidents that they said involved drug use by some customers and in some cases, members of the public, in certain locations... “We read every incident report you file—it’s a lot,” wrote U.S. operations leads Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson in a message to U.S. employees Monday. “We cannot serve as partners if we don’t first feel safe at work,” they said, referring to the company’s term for employees. Starbucks also said that it would give store managers leeway to close restrooms, limit seating or reduce operations in response to safety concerns. The moves are part of policies aimed at addressing workers’ concerns, including about their safety on the job"
This was only 4 years after they changed their bathroom police because of "racism"
Starbucks changes bathroom policy prompted by Philadelphia arrests in 2018 - "Starbucks is modifying its open-bathroom policy that allowed anyone to use the restroom at its stores. Employees now have the option to close bathrooms if there are safety concerns... the company’s senior vice presidents of U.S. operations wrote that giving employees the option to close restrooms was one of several initiatives geared toward making Starbucks shops safer for workers and customers... the two men cursed at the Starbucks manager and refused to leave after officers repeatedly asked them to. It also accused the men of insulting police."
How long till the next racism allegation?
If black people insult the police, it's because the police are racist
Lesbian bar shuts down one week after opening because they weren't woke enough - "Doc Marie’s is a lesbian bar that opened on July 1st of this year with the hope of bringing more inclusivity to the city of Portland. But just one week after their grand opening they were forced to shut down because of complaints that the bar was not a “safe space.” Similar to the story I wrote a few weeks ago about the queer-owned cafe in Philadelphia that was shut down by employees for not being woke enough, Doc Marie’s was cannibalized by the woke mob... Within days, Doc Marie’s found itself on the receiving end of accusations of not being inclusive enough for trans people and people of color. Despite mask mandates being lifted in Portland, patrons accused the bar of not implementing enough COVID safety measures. Patrons also claimed that Doc Marie’s had “culturally appropriative art” on the walls... the employees demanded the owners relinquish ownership of the bar and hand the business to them. The owners were given a “24-hour deadline” to adhere to the ludicrous demands.
Meme - "NETFLIX
BROWN PEOPLE HAVING GAY CHEMSEX ONTOP OF WAR GRAVES
What's the matter? Do you have some kind of problem with this? Lot what are you going to do about it?"
Netflix Has Cancelled Controversial Series After One Season - "a controversial Netflix series has now been one of the latest shows to be cancelled. It’s none other than the animated series Q-Force. Interestingly, Q-Force had a somewhat decent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes at 78%. Nevertheless, it doesn’t look like the series managed to make the executives at the major streaming platform happy with the results. It’s possible that the viewership was just too low. The series itself had a premise that seemed to appeal mostly to the LGBTQ crowd. Specifically, the main characters of the series included a team of LGBTQ secret agents"
Netflix stock crashed more than 20% after reporting a massive loss of subscribers and Elon Musk had thoughts - "Just over a decade ago, Netflix was king. The ability to rent movies in the mail – then the ability to stream them online – killed the giant retail video industry (RIP, Blockbuster!). At one point, internet providers were warring with Netflix because the site used a disproportionate percentage of all web traffic, putting a serious strain on the lower-tech servers and infrastructure back in the ancient era of 2010. As Netflix rose supreme, it promised that it would upset the entertainment industry by creating exclusive content directly, cutting out the Hollywood middlemen in production and the cinema to restructure film forever. But then something happened. Instead of awesome movies and TV shows, we got pedophilic "Cuties" and raunchy "Bridgerton," along with a barrage of woke crud and a few "meh" films (with maybe one good WWII film and an action flick starring Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds)... The company blamed Russia because that's the cool thing to do right now, but let's be honest. Most of you kept watching because there was "The Office," "Parks and Rec," the Marvel Universe, and "Seinfeld," but the old-school media empire finally learned how streaming works, like your grandma who finally learned how to use Facebook when everyone stopped using it in 2018. Now, the only reason to still own Netflix is for a paltry offering of so-so shows from yesteryear (and Seinfeld). Their latest big show? A nature documentary narrated by Barack Obama... Everything is woke and gross and preachy and cringeworthy... Netflix could have changed the game and stayed king. But then it got infected with the woke mind virus, and soon it'll be a relic of the past"
Netflix Lays Off Women Of Color As Stock Plummets - "You could launch a rock into oblivion and likely land on a reason to boycott Netflix. Whether it’s the fluctuating prices, the lack of quality content, or the company’s failure to properly address anti-trans jokes made by its hired talent, the streaming platform has pissed off enough people to lose over 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. Perhaps you’re one of them, or maybe you’re about to be. In the latest round of poorly made decisions by the company, Netflix has laid off a newly hired cohort of writers for their website Tudum, most of them women of color. While many won’t find this to be surprising given the fact that Black and brown women are often the first on the chopping block at all levels of employment, this displacement is not only unjust, but immoral, as these women were hired on specifically to strengthen and diversify the team that was being built. Tudum, named after the sound of the Netflix logo, launched in December 2021 as a fandom site, promising to bring fans “behind the streams” with exclusive content relevant to popular shows such as “Bridgerton” and “Stranger Things”. But if you haven’t even heard of the website before today, you’re not alone. Several site editors are pinning the platform’s impending doom on its lean marketing efforts. On the heels of Netflix’s Q1 2022 earning reports, the company is not only being forced to recalibrate its spending costs, but has also been named “the worst performer in the S&P 500 this year”"
Liberals mock the claim that woke programming is why Netflix lost subscribers. But this shows that the company knows the truth. Of course, the cope will be to blame them for being bigoted and cutting back on the programming that the people really want to see. To liberals, companies are greedy - but not as much as they're evil (convenient excuse about lack of marketing here notwithstanding).
Ironically, the fact that they're so eager to boycott Netflix shows why pandering to the woke crowd is a losing strategy and refutes their claim that that's where the money is.
Elon Musk, Other Top Figures Praise Netflix For Cracking Down On Woke Employees - "Elon Musk and other top figures praised Netflix’s new corporate culture memo that effectively tells woke employees that the company will not censor content and that if they have a problem with something that the company is producing that they are free to go work somewhere else... the change in Netflix’s company culture appears to be in large part due to the backlash the streaming service faced from woke employees last year over its Dave Chappelle special, which the employees claimed was transphobic. The updated Netflix Culture memo includes a new section called “Artistic Expression” that states that it will not “censor specific artists or voices” even if employees consider the content to be “harmful.”... the company supports “the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with” and that “we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”"
I saw a lot of liberals complaining that it was unreasonable to make employees work on "harmful" content. So much for do your job or get fired. Of course these are the same people who go on about "white fragility"
Netflix 'axes wokest staff' and warns others to stop meddling as profits tank - "Netflix's recent axing of 290 staff targeted many of the firm's wokest workers who are prolific social justice warriors on social media, it has been claimed. The struggling streaming service has pulled the plug on several projects that were aimed at discussing race and LGBTQ issues, Variety reported, and axed the diverse employees working on and promoting them... Those promotional workers were assigned to work on Netflix projects Strong Black Lead, the Asian American-focused Golden, the Latino-focused Con Todo, and the LGBTQ-focused Most... Filmmaker Carly Usdin called Netflix 'a joke' and tweeted: 'Uhhh is netflix only laying off the teams associated with making and promoting content for marginalized viewers?? that's what it seems like.' Karla Monterroso, who works to secure economic opportunities for women of color, tweeted: 'Netflix hired a powerhouse team of creators from a variety of marginalized communities and they were performing exceptionally well... Netflix has also scrapped a host of woke shows - the most famous of which is Meghan Markle's doomed animation Pearl, about a socially-conscious girl said to have been based on Meghan herself. Other scrapped projects included Antiracist Baby and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You, two adaptions by Critical Race Theory expert Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, as well as a kids' fantasy series Wings of Fire from executive producer Ava DuVernay, and the children's film With Kind Regards From Kindergarten. The most notable of the scrapped works was Antiracist Baby, based on Kendi's book of the same name, which had been envisioned as a series of animated vignettes set to music and intended to explore racism in America. Netflix had previously said that the show would 'leverage the power of earwormy songs to empower kids and their caregivers with simple tools to uproot racism in ourselves and society.' Also cancelled was a documentary written by Kendi, titled Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You, which was aimed at teens and young adults."
Get woke, go broke. Axing low performing employees and projects is a good way to return to profitability
TGIF: Conspiracy Theories and Hard Realities - "The company framed the firings as “layoffs”—but 150 people doesn’t really make a dent for a company of 11,000 people. Those 150 happen to include, just by chance, some of the most Twitter-active social justice workers in the place"
Netflix and the woke power play - "In 2018, for example, it fired one of its executives for using the n-word, even though he used it purely descriptively to talk about offensive words. The trouble with being a woke corporation is that once you go down that road, you can never be woke enough in the eyes of the truly woke... Netflix is not alone in having its own staff attempt to censor its content. Many other media corporations have also found their woke credentials challenged by their millennial employees. Spotify faced a mini rebellion last year over some of the episodes produced by its biggest podcast star, Joe Rogan. Spotify employees complained that they found some of Rogan’s guests and content offensive, and demanded editorial oversight over his show. They threatened to stage a walkout unless they received it. Young woke employees doubling-up as freelance censors are also busy in publishing. Penguin Random House Canada faced the wrath of fragile millennial staff members when they discovered Penguin was publishing controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson’s new book. And trans booksellers were outraged when independent bookstores received copies of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters from the American Booksellers Association. The ABA swiftly apologised for including Irreversible in its July 2021 mailout to its 750 member bookstores. Publishing is fast becoming a career choice for ambitious would-be censors. They are particularly active when it comes to trans-related issues. One group of individuals from across publishing wrote a letter to the Bookseller, attacking ‘transphobia… in the British book industry’, and demanded that it stop publishing books that supposedly promote it. But it is not just trans issues that are prompting internal outrage at large publishers. Earlier this year, 216 employees at Simon & Schuster in New York signed a petition insisting that it sever its ties with writers associated with the Trump administration. This included former vice-president Mike Pence, who had just signed a two-year publishing deal with Simon & Schuster. It is clear that woke ideology has inspired some of those working in the media to demand what is, in effect, editorial control over their employers’ content. This new generation of media employees is seemingly unwilling to tolerate anything that it deems offensive. David Shelley, the CEO of Hachette Book Group, and Clare Alexander, a literary agent, told the House of Lords communications and digital committee that publishers now have to warn new recruits that they may have to work on books by people they don’t agree with... protests, like the one against Dave Chappelle, are not just motivated by identity politics. They are also a means to gain power within an elite corporation."
We were told that what was happening on college campuses was irrelevant
Netflix To Begin Displaying Political Affiliations Of Actors Onscreen | The Babylon Bee - ""you'll now know when someone who disagrees with your ideas is on the screen so you can immediately turn it off and boycott that show forever"... Netflix had confirmed that subtitles telling you when to boo because an actor with unpopular ideas came on the screen are in development."
After holding "Republicans Are Racist" sale for MLK day, a Wisconsin spice company has lost a bunch of customers and is asking others to buy discounted gift cards to make up for the loss - "CEO Bill Penzey is seriously out here trying to get his loyal brainwashed fanbase to purchase discounted gift cards in order to make up for the loss."
Meme - "MAJ. GEN. ED THOMAS I USAF RECRUITING SERVICE COMMANDER: U.S, AIR FORCE FACES RECRUITING CHALLENGES"
Stephen Wolfe @Perfinjust: "If you alienate your core recruiting demographic just to get a few purple-haired officers, you might face some problems."
Michael S. Miller @imichaelsmiller: "Maybe try being less woke."
University of Edinburgh loses £2 million in funding over 'woke' renaming of David Hume Tower - "The University of Edinburgh has seen a decrease in its cash donations by nearly £2million in the past year following it being at the centre of a woke row. The institution saw the slump in funding following the row after it renamed its David Hume Tower over the philosopher’s alleged discriminatory comments in 1742 and slavery links. It was also the subject of scrutiny after the social anthropology department withdrew Dr Neil Thin from teaching at the university as a senior lecturer after speaking out against the decision and was falsely smeared and hounded by student activists... 24 donations and 12 legacies to the university were “cancelled, amended or withdrawn in response to the renaming”."
Elizabeth Banks made ‘Charlie’s Angels’ to celebrate women at work - "When it comes to inclusivity in Hollywood, Banks believes that paying attention to it ultimately makes good business sense. “When you think about what has been put out in the media, it’s mostly from a cisgendered white male perspective. Everything that’s not that feels a little bit fresher and so it feels like pretty good business. I’m the audience, I want things that I haven’t seen before. My real plea is for men to have enough empathy to go see movies starring women because I’ve been asked to go see movies starring men my entire life, and I’ve happily done so. I don’t know why men don’t return that fucking favor.”"
I wonder if she realised the contradiction, at least after her movie bombed
‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Will ‘Scare the F*ck’ Out of Internet Trolls - "“If you’re at all enlightened, she’ll play like gangbusters. If you’re a closet misogynist, she’ll scare the fuck out of you, because she’s tough and strong but very feminine,” Miller said. “We did not trade certain gender traits for others; she’s just very strong, and that frightens some dudes. You can see online the responses to some of the early shit that’s out there, trolls on the internet. I don’t give a fuck.”"
‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Puts Franchise on Ice, Faces $120M-Plus Loss
James Cameron on ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Failure - "Cameron discussed his decision to return to the series in 2019 as an executive producer on “Terminator: Dark Fate.” He said that he attributes the film’s box office failure to some blind spots he and director Tim Miller missed during the creative process."
Imagine having contempt for your customers and expecting to turn a profit
Nolte: Early Numbers Show Golden Globe Ratings Hit All-Time Low - "There were no Golden Globes in 2022. The Woke Gestapo shut down the Globes after discovering their membership lacked the appropriate racial quotas. But, with much fanfare, the Globes returned to NBC last night… And kersplatted. All the anticipation around the return of the Globes did nothing to juice its ratings. Why? Because everyone knew — correctly, as it turned out — the Globes would spend all three of its hours proving its purity to the Woke Gestapo. In other words, the show would be no fun whatsoever."
Hollywood, where the customer is always wrong - "‘Everyone who isn’t a homophobic weirdo should go see Bros tonight!’ So tweeted Billy Eichner, writer and lead star of gay romantic comedy Bros... Unfortunately for Eichner, audiences don’t seem to have listened to his heartfelt appeal. Nor do they seem to have been moved by the film’s many rave reviews. In the end, the $22million production ranked fourth at the box office on its opening weekend, taking only $4.9million, about 40 per cent less than expected. To explain away the flop, Eichner has placed all the blame on the filmgoing public. ‘Even with glowing reviews… straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros’, he complained. The implication being that there are a lot of ‘homophobic weirdos’ out there, who are just not ready to see gay relationships on screen. It’s a fanciful charge. Never mind that films with gay lead characters have attained critical and commercial success in the past. The Birdcage, a comedy starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple, scored first at the box office on its opening weekend – and that was over 25 years ago, long before a majority of the public came on board with gay rights. Brokeback Mountain, a drama starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as deeply closeted cowboys, received the most nominations at the 2006 Academy Awards – including for Best Picture. Any taboo over gay relationships in mainstream cinema was broken a long time ago. And there is just no evidence that audiences find such stories inherently offputting or offensive. What audiences are tiring of, however, is films and TV shows that clumsily shoehorn woke talking points into the plot. And Bros does exactly this... ‘Remember straight people?’, says Bobby, ‘They had a nice run’. Unfortunately for Eichner, the same will not be said of Bros. Then there is the marketing and the press coverage. The Hollywood press is at pains to emphasise that Bros is a film made about gay men and for gay men. ‘Make no mistake, Bros is a very gay movie’, says one enthusiastic reviewer. ‘Billy Eichner’s very gay Bros trailer has radicalised me’, says another sympathetic critic. Instead of stressing any universal, human qualities in the story, virtually all of the coverage has put its identitarian niche to the fore. It is as if the filmgoers – made up mainly of those dreaded straights – are expected to go to the cinema in order to affirm their allegiance to an oppressed identity group... For the likes of Eichner, and the rest of woke Hollywood, this just means the audience is wrong and is not to be trusted. When the filmmaking elites take such a dim view of filmgoers, perhaps it’s no wonder their films are flopping."
We are told that not all shows are meant for everyone. Then when they flop, 'bigots' are blamed
Movie Targeting 2% Of Americans Fails At Box Office | Babylon Bee - ""Once again, straight Americans have failed the gay community at the box office – we said the movie was not for cis-hetero oppressors, and they still failed to show up!" Director and star Billy Eichner sent a series of tweets condemning straight viewers for failing to see the movie that he had specified was not for them. Industry analysts have weighed in, confirming that they do not expect global ticket sales to exceed domestic sales, since even fewer people in international audiences are part of the target audience for the film, and also since most Middle-Eastern and Asian countries announced the death penalty for anyone caught watching it."
Wilfred Reilly on Twitter - "People don't watch movies as formal gestures of team support: they check out shit they want to watch. Gotta say, as an investor - it is not surprising that a rom-com w no female lead or appeal failed."
Christina Sommers on Twitter - "Romcoms are supposed to be clever and funny. The trailer tells me it’s neither."
Video Game Players Avoid Gay Characters - Scientific American - "Some players reported in the survey that they felt other players see lesbians as appealing and interesting, but that the same players voice disgust toward gay men."
We keep getting told that consumers want to see themselves represented in the media. So this is not surprising according to that logic
Facebook - ""You homophobic weirdos wouldn't see my movie, and I'm so angry, I'm going to yell at you and insult you until you see my movie!" — Great Marketing Strategies Of History... "homophobic audiences" have been turning out to see gay-centric movies for decades: "Brokeback Mountain" (2006, $83M domestic gross), "The Birdcage" (1996, $124M), "Philadelphia" (1993, $77M)... Perhaps audiences aren't all that into films reportedly featuring gay orgies, obnoxious lectures on why kids must be taught gay culture, and a denouement involving the high stakes of whether two dudes should not have sex with other dudes for three months. Also, what was the supposed audience here? Straight men don't love romcoms in the first place; women typically enjoy romances involving, you know, male-female pairings. So the pitch here was: here's a genre that only succeeds because women want to watch it, but between dudes."
Meme - "Netflix: We don't understand why we are losing subscribers at a record rate.
Also Netflix: HE'S EXPECTING"
Victoria’s Secret CEO Amy Hauk exits amid 'woke' controversies - "The once-loved brand has had a tumultuous few years with an attempted rebranding that implemented "woke" policies like removing the iconic "Angels" models as well as the yearly fashion show."
Report: 'Saturday Night Live' Ratings Nosedive Continues with New Low - "SNL has struggled with ratings as the show continues to embrace left-wing politics. While the series relentlessly ridiculed former President Donald Trump, it has gone easy on President Joe Biden by soft-pedaling his disastrous handling of the border crisis and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. New cast member James Austin Johnson impersonated Biden in this season’s opener in a sketch that lampooned divisions in the Democratic Party, targeting Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV)."
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish Destroys Modern Hollywood - YouTube - "You know sometimes life throws us a bone from the most unlikely of directions. I mean if you told me that a sequel to a 10 year old animated spin-off from the Shrek franchise would turn out to be a smart funny charming poignant meditation on life loyalty friendship self-sacrifice aging and the inevitability of death and one of the best movies that I've seen so far this year, I'd have asked what brand of turpentine you've been drinking because I want some... for me it actually restored a little bit of faith that we're still capable of making great animated features... I've got to admit my main thought while watching The Last Wish was how the *** did they manage to get this made? And I don't mean that in the same way as something like Velma which genuinely made me question my faith in the human race. Unlike so many animated movies now that range from soulless homogenized corporate crap that might as well have been built on an assembly line to divisive and cynical attempts at political indoctrination, this movie has actual heart and soul to it. It feels like the writers really had something important they wanted to say and the skill and experience to get their ideas across without sounding preachy and condescending. Imagine in that in 2023"
