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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

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Your description should mention that both the man and a plurality of women in the video likely qualify as black. (You might not care about that, but the target audience will.)

I agree that it the spot does not work targeting men. The message is basically: to get a girlfriend, you need to (1) make 100k$ a year, (2) be tall, (3) be athletic, and (4) vote Harris. The number of men who fit 1-3, but still don't get laid and can be convinced that this is because of their lack of voting should be basically nil.

Also, I find that spot incredibly cringe. I am aware that income and hotness are influential for partner selection, but starting with 'how much do you make?' as an icebreaker question seems incredible vulgar. The way these things normally work (afaik) is that both sides have plausible deniability. There are whole brands surviving wholly on their value as an income signal. If a woman shows interest in a man wearing expensive, tasteful stuff, there is that veneer of deniability: there is always some probability that she does not care about his wealth at all, but just is interested in his charming personality or whatever. If you ask explicitly, that creates common knowledge of the transactional nature of the relationship, at which point the man might ask himself if he would not be better served by an escort. The male version of 'how much do you make?' might be 'I will pay you 500$ for a blowjob', which likewise highlights the transactional nature of the relationship. From my understanding, this is a big no-no when flirting with women who don't consider themselves sex workers.

Even for hotness, some people might feel offended if it is implied that their physical characteristics will get them the relationship. Invert the genders, and instead of height and athleticism, the suitors might ask the woman about her breast size or hotness on a scale of 1-10. The Harris campaign would be the first to decry this as demeaning the woman by reducing her to a sex object. (Aside, the lack of a screen between the man and the women makes the questions about his physique bizarre: presumably, the women can see how he looks.)

Also, there are unfortunate implications about the women who are so interested in their suitor's finances. Are these not supposed to be strong independent women, who have their own six figure jobs, and could well support a stay-at-home dad? The vibes I get from this clip are "I am looking for a hot, rich guy to earn my Mrs degree."

It makes more sense as a power fantasy targeting women ("of course I am so hot/charming that hot rich guys will want to date me, but I can be picky enough to just date Harris voters"). Still, the fact that the ad did apparently well on A/B testing is kind of scathing for the target audience.

Invert the genders, and instead of height and athleticism, the suitors might ask the woman about her breast size or hotness on a scale of 1-10.

"What's your BMI"?