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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   27776 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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I think the question is whether this is kind of a Schelling point that corporations all converge on 'naturally' because of ambient incentives, like how they all use some variation of Corporate Memphis art in their publications, or if there's some thumb(s) on the scale in a more direct way, even if it is behind the scenes.

It is safe enough to conclude that this isn't the result of some purely random selection effects or a specifically meritorious process.

Honestly I see an argument for both of the options (and the truth is probably a combination of both). On the one hand you probably have some suits running numbers and noticing that commercials featuring a black male lead to .3% better sales down the line. But there's also probably some internal DEI office at the corporation which coordinates with some well-funded NGO to ensure that their ads are sufficiently multicultural in order to avoid a bad publicity blitz or something.

And between these pressures it becomes much simpler to cast nonwhite races and since there's no backlash it becomes standard practice.

An experiment would be to try watching broadcast TV in, say Mexico, or Japan, or an Arabic country and seeing if there's a similar noticeable phenomenon. (While I admit to not having tried this experiment, I will bet large sums that most of those commercials feature the ethnicity that is most common within that country).

there's some thumb(s) on the scale in a more direct way, even if it is behind the scenes

ESG investing is that thumb. Trillions of dollars in funds are earmarked for ESG (environmental, social and governance), the better a company's score on ESG metrics, the more investment they get from these funds. These metrics mostly measure how much a company aligns with the mainstream green, globalist, liberal thought-complex (to avoid mentioning The Cathedral). The thought-complex wants to see less white men in ads, so companies will obey, to the extent they can avoid damaging their sales too much, to qualify for this investment money.

(to avoid mentioning The Cathedral)

Awkward constructions like this are why I still appreciate and use the term Cathedral even though I don't actually like Moldbug's writing.

It is useful to have a term to describe this phenomenon everyone who's paying attention sees, but escapes having simple way to name or describe it. You can't just say it's one party, because it's clearly in control of multiple parties, sometimes all the major ones, in multiple countries. It's not just one single ideology because it will adopt incoherent positions to further itself. It's not a conspiracy because it's participants are for the most part unaware they're in it, and its direction is the emergent result of the process that build it rather than human will. I would call it a manifestation of the centralizing forces that build up in complex human organisations, but that's just how I explain it.

But there's also probably some internal DEI office at the corporation which coordinates with some well-funded NGO to ensure that their ads are sufficiently multicultural in order to avoid a bad publicity blitz or something.

I'd suggest that "Nobody got fired for buying IBM casting minority actors in their commercials."

Actually Latin American media productions and notoriously lily white despite their countries not being.

You can chalk certain things up to the fact that actors will inevitably be prettier than the average citizen.

I mean, lets also consider that a huge portion of Americans are obese and yet you're unlikely to see actors with high BMI in commercials for similar reasons. Unless its for women's casual fashion brands.

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