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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31952 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Exactly! If you're trying to reposition the brand as inclusive and evolving and what-not, then get a trans man to be the face of your promotion.

Not whatever Dylan Mulvaney is, I really don't believe he's a trans woman, I think he's a gay guy that started a performance art/drag act during lockdown and now it's blown up into this big thing that is too profitable (up till now) to drop:

Mulvaney came out as a trans woman during the COVID-19 pandemic, while living with her "very conservative family" at her childhood home in San Diego. She began to document her gender transition in a daily series of videos published on TikTok titled "Days of Girlhood" in March 2022, and her videos began to gain in popularity. She said in an interview:

When the pandemic hit, I was doing the Broadway musical Book of Mormon. I found myself jobless and without the creative means to do what I loved. I downloaded TikTok, assuming it was a kids' app. Once I came out as a woman, I made this "day one of being a girl" comedic video. And it blew up. I really don't know another place online like TikTok that can make a creator grow at the rate that it does. Some of these other apps really celebrate perfection and over-editing and flawlessness. I think with TikTok specifically, people love the rawness. They love people just talking to the camera. I try to approach every video like a FaceTime with a friend.

My uninformed view on this is that Mulvaney is a theatre kid turned performer who, like a lot of performers, needs attention and an audience like a plant needs sunshine. Being locked down at home with no job, they tried the online performance and it caught on, and the rest is history.

This seems to be the second controversy over "we're not officially partnered with Mulvaney", Snopes is debunking the story but it does seem that Mulvaney claimed Tampax sent them a box of tampons to share with women who need them (I can't even begin to untangle the logic behind that line of thinking):

Responding to comments on Twitter, Tampax denied the claim about the partnership with Mulvaney. "Thanks for getting in touch, the brand wrote in response. "We can confirm that we do not have a sponsorship agreement with Dylan Mulvaney or Jeffrey Marsh."

Although the TikTok star did not immediately respond to the claim about a partnership with Tampax, in a video of Dec. 7, 2022, Mulvaney denied working with the brand and getting any money from the company. The celebrity added that Tampax sent Mulvaney a box of tampons in April 2022 to give to women who needed them.

Why the hell would Tampax just out of the blue send this person a box of tampons for no reason except "share them round"? One box? Gentlemen, let me assure you that is not a lot of sharing around (though it does depend on the size of the box). And how exactly is Mulvaney meant to give them to women who need tampons? Approaching random women on the street and asking "Hey, honey, need a tampon?" Approaching random women in bathrooms? Yeah, that move is going to go over well.

Somebody is not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if the Budweiser marketing lady was copying this move with "hey, send a promotional can with Mulvaney's face on it to them", then the decision was even stupider than I thought.

Why the hell would Tampax just out of the blue send this person a box of tampons for no reason except "share them round"?

Obviously he doesn’t need tampons, but maybe they figured having them in his purse would help him pass? Still seems dumb, but it seems like a box of tampons would be cheap to ship out, especially if it’s to someone who doesn’t actually need them and thus won’t need more than a notional quantity. Alternatively they thought he’d do a video on ‘contents of a girl’s purse’ or some such bs and they thought they could corner the trans market- after all, Tampax presumably doesn’t care if the person buying their product doesn’t actually need it as long as their credit card goes through.

It's a fetish...

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