The question is no longer, “Do you want to buy Wheat Thins?” For example. The question is now, “Will you support Wheat Thins in the fight against Lyme disease?” (Bo Burnham's Inside)
I think the real question is, "are you content with the pandering served this evening?" For example, this youtube channel is taking its time to pander to its audience about how marketing is marketing after seeing a marketing campaign address issues more important than any issues the youtube channel is addressing. All so that the youtube channel can make money, and you feel good being pandered to.
@@TrentYakle marketing is marketing, and that inherently means it doesn’t have your best interests as a consideration. At all. If it did, for example, they might point out how eating meat contributes to climate change. RU-vid personalities like this one may know that they need to make money by creating videos that appeal to their audiences, but the message isn’t an ad for anything. The message is the “product” we are being sold.
@@TrentYakle Saying that steak-umm's marketing was "addressing issues" is being too generous. They alluded to real-life problems, yes, but they didn't discuss any of them in-depth, they didn't give any calls to action, and they never had the intention of doing either of these. As you said, it's just pandering and selling products is their one and only goal. I agree that people should be aware of the monetary incentives that youtube channels have but I think reducing this channel to just "pandering" is hyperbolic. Like, this channel has real educational value. It's not obvious to everyone that steak-umm's twitter is marketing and discussing it gives insight into similar advertisements. Also, this channel never set out to address any issues? It's strange to hold it to that standard when, I believe, most people watch these videos for entertainment. Zoe Bee never pretended to be anything other than a youtuber and is transparent about the fact that she makes money from these videos. She's hardly comparable to steak-umm's twitter.
@@worstelldaniel honestly your reply is so brain dead, I am dumbfounded. Marketing has nothing to do with 'your best interests,' and to paint it as some evil is so stupid. It could lead to bad things, it could also not, it depends, but that takes having a brain to pay attention. But on top of that to act like someone trying to profit off of you on youtube is totally different and not equally capable of looking to maliciously profit off of you? wtf lol so stupid
I love love love "internet history lessons" like this because I think the internet age is probably (ironically) underdocumented so this was both entertaining and educational. Entercational, one might say.
What kind of pretzelled logic would we see if Steak-Umm was pressured into talking about how their workers are treated in processing centres and what they think about meat production's huge contribution to climate change?
Or animal cruelty, the waste of food resources in meat production, eco system destruction to farm those resources, the economic effect of creating cheap grain for animal feed on the prices of the same product intended for human consumption and how that affects local farmers, the enormous amount of meat that is thrown away every year, the health effects of exessive meat comsuption or the physical and psychological toll on the workers, long hours, lack of benefits and unions and how capitalism forces people into those jobs despite all the downsides. I'm guessing that is pretty much the list of things to avoid that their social media person has pinned to their wall, oh and anything directly cocerning anti capitalism of course.
When Naomi Klein's book "No Logo" (about the evils of brand-building corporations) became a success, she got offers from people who wanted to sell products carrying the "No Logo" brand.
I feel like it's especially gross considering their product is a result of many layers of abuse. Even putting the animals aside, what right does a meat product have to tell us about "sickening injustice" when it relies on slaughterhouse workers who get literal PTSD from their jobs? They're selling suffering as wokeness.
I think even worse than that possibly is the fact that *any* meat company is already horrible for the environment by definition. Raising cattle, chickens, and other meat is the most resource inefficient way to make food, and one of the largest, if not *the* largest cause of climate change.
@@carsonpearce5980 That is actually incorrect. If you do it correctly, raising animals for food has a very minimal impact on climate change (cattle eating acres of grass instead of feed in a lot, chickens eating bugs and seeds that exist in that same grass instead of feed in a lot, etc) The climate started changing when people started planting crops. The evidence is there and clear and before people started planting crops, they raised and domesticated animals for food. If we return to that and get rid of crop farming altogether, things will definitely get better. Even for the lives of the animals which seem to be the biggest point of contention with vegans.
@@kyokoyumi do you think if livestock farmers could get away with feeding their animals literally stuff that's just on the ground, they wouldn't be doing that already the problem isn't the concept of livestock farming itself (disregarding the ethical question for a moment), the problem is the scale, and that doesn't just go away by switching to bugs and grass
@@kyokoyumi The biggest problem is the fact that it takes more land to raise a specific amount of meat than it does to grow the same amount of crops. This is because the livestock expend energy from the food they eat by simply staying alive, so a large percentage of the nutrients are not transferred up from the grain to the meat. This means that more land has to be farmed per unit of meat than per unit of plant based food. Therefore, if people consume less meat, less land will be needed for agriculture overall, meaning less natural habitat will be destroyed, and less emissions will be produced from harvesting and transporting crops only to be fed to livestock where most of that weight is not transferred to the final product. Also, cows produce methane gas, an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Double also, this isnt really relevant to the point, but I just wanted to make it clear that climate change started with industrialization not the agricultural revolution. Yes, the agricultural revolution sucked, destroyed lots of habitat, and essentially doomed humanity to back breaking manual labor for 10,000 years (source: www3.gettysburg.edu/~dperry/Class%20Readings%20Scanned%20Documents/Intro/Diamond.PDF ), but that is different from climate change. I understand your point that social structures similar to those of nomadic herding peoples that traditionally lived in many parts of the world may be better for quality of life, but the simple fact is that they take prohibitively large amounts of land to be useful today. Sure, nomadic herding was great when you only needed to sustain a few hundred thousand people in all of the eurasian steppes, but it just cant sustain the current population, and unless you are suggesting a Thanos-esque solution, it wont be sustainable in the modern day. It would be great if there were less people to take care of, but currently there are many practical barriers to that future, and that means that, from what I have seen, for now, almost all climate experts agree that meat consumption on the level of the average U.S. consumer is simply not sustainable.
Steak-Umm is totally into social justice, that's why they support a robust worker's union, pay employees a good wage with job security and benefits, ethically source their raw materials, and upgraded their facilities with sustainability in mind. Right?
@@Flanagax I think he says it in his video titled "Woke Brands." It came out a few years ago and it's a great companion to this video. I recommend checking it out!
Next steak-umm thread: "yeah, we're terrible for the environment, but so are all the other meat brands, so you'd better buy from us because at least we acknowledge it!" and the replies will all be "wow, so honest, I'm gonna go buy steak umm! 🤩"
@Christopher Wood You can be a vegan if you want. Just don't mention environmental impact, because it's not the problem. Cattle eat mostly plants not edible by humans. Just because grass can grow doesn't mean you can grow something you can eat. The problem with food in particular is *waste* which by the way, the minority of it is meat and diary. And the elephant in the room, fossil fuels, and that includes plastic, is THE major contributor to global warming; it is so big it makes every other factor insignificant.
Thank you for displaying the frozen sheet of meat at 8:42. I used to eat these as a child amongst other terrible foods (reminds me of your junk food video). Steak-Ums, you may look pure and innocent on your Twitter, but we've all seen what's underneath that facade...a devious and weirdly-colored flap of mystery meat.
There is no phrase I fear more than “Steak-Umm Bless.” EDIT: Actually no, wait, there is a phrase I fear more than Steak-umm bless. And that phrase is “beefy thread incoming.”
Yeah the cognitive dissonance is glass shattering. Not only is it built on a system that exploits beings of lesser power, it's also the perpetuator of the most amount of physical suffering in history, while at the same time degrading millions of people's health and contributing heavily to pollution and global warming that has the most devastating effects on poorer countries and populations. Always easy to find "sickening injustice" around us as long as we don't look at a mirror...
@@Ermude10 from a liberal perspective that true. from a leftist perspective its to be expected. Note that Steak-Ums will never tweet a message encouraging its own employees to form a union or other forms of direct action that would impact their company or threaten the capitalism status quo. Its not them being hypocritical or not self aware: their job is to gather attention to their brand and young people are talking about how they hate capitalism so there they go.
So true. Not only is factory farming very obviously horrible for animals, factory farms, meat processing plants and slaugther houses are also some of the worst places to work. It is stressfull, underpaid, unsafe and it fucks with your brain, because killing animals or cutting dead meat all day is not great for one's mental relation to other beings.
I can't stop thinking about the fact that some underpaid, overworked person had to write these things on steak-umm's official twitter account... maybe start paying your workers a living wage and the world might get a little bit better... I mean, these statements are obviously completely insincere, we're talking about huge conglomerates whose only goal is to maximise profits and it gets really annoying, but the fact that there's an incentive for these companies to engage in performative wokeness is indicative of actual positive societal change...
@@DiThi I mean it's true, I don't know how intentional it is on their part, but it has a secondary purpose of pointing the finger away from them and the system that enables the exploitation of billions of people...
in this case it isn't some poor underpaid intern or something, it's nathan allebach he's actually a fairly leftist guy himself, he just makes his money doing social media for various corporations, with steak-umms being the one he's best known for repping; here's his twitter: twitter.com/nathanallebach most of the steak-umms threads aren't because steak-umms told him to do them, but because they don't really care what he does since his posts get them attention (not that the threads aren't gross because of brand engagement etc. etc., but the guy himself is well-paid and his tweets made through the filter of a corporate brand for clicks are also at the same time sincere expressions of his personal outlook)
@@Idran oh, I didn't see your comment, but this actually highlights some interesting things... when you incorporate the criticism in the system, the criticism loses any power it had, the people writing these tweets might be sincere, but it doesn't matter... for example, hunger games were quite anti-capitalist, but probably no one became a socialist after watching them... corporations know that and they're not afraid of putting out anti-capitalist media and commodities because they know that this won't cause a revolution... this is the corporate equivalent of Grimes doing a photoshoot while reading the communist manifesto, wearing an outfit that costs more than your yearly salary... they reduce socialism to an aesthetic that serves the interests of the capital...
@@walterl322 yes. i think the guy knows that and is content with pushing the discourse even if its only discourse. I mean, realistically I don't think that social justice discourse is gonna have any revolutionary effect right now even if it wasn't tweeted from a brand account. I'm not saying that he is planting the seeds of revolution singlehandedly by doing this but in a era where revolution is not anywhere near the horizon yet and you have to earn money then why not going with the flow and get the opportunity to make the discourse popular and contributing it to make it more palatable for more people? Capitalism was going to capitalize on it anyway with or without you. Not going against the video though, those tweets are definitely ads. That's the format of things now, ads, it's an ever present format in this day. And people are falling for it as Zoe says.
This year during Pride I started a practice of looking up a company's campaign contributions everytime I saw them do something for Pride and man was that depressing. The number of companies who change their logo to a rainbow logo while giving money to people who are actively trying to take rights away from LGBT people is so high. It was basically all of them. It's infuriating.
Because those same people also want to lower taxes on said companies, uphold the status-quo, reduce government interference and get rid of unions. It's all in the money.
Tangential to your point (which, well-said): While you were trash-talking Steak-umm The Product, all I could think of was the video a few months ago of you happily chowing down on a Slim Jim. I find it hilarious that each of us has a fondness for the trash-food meat product we grew up with (Slim Jim for you, Steak-umm for me) and repulsed by the one we didn't. To be clear, I don't think you're wrong -- it is absolutely the scraps pulverized and molded into thin uniform sheets -- I'm just amused at the juxtaposition.
This is just typical. The trouble with Millennials is that they're so willing to be entertained and to learn that they flock to entertainment, and qualified educators, in order to be entertained and to learn. Like this. Steak-umm Bleeess
Being willing to be entertained and to learn are not bad qualities, at all. They are potentially beneficial traits that can help people drastically improve their lives in record time. That being said, some degree of awareness needs to be maintained. Discernment needs to be refined. Finally, a decision about what questionable content must be filtered out needs to be made.
This youtube channel should do a video about the horrors of purity checking for the sake of 'woke clout' and pandering to an audience for money. Like how this video found a marketing campaign addressing more important issues than anything the channel addresses, and made sure to talk about how upset they got that marketing is marketing and not real advocacy. Which is funny because no one said it was real advocacy, but the best part is at 13:51 when the video says a social media page set up to sell you something is never worth listening to (you know, like a youtube channel set up to make money) fully shoving their foot in their mouth while making an ad hominem. Seeing how sad is it that Steak umms has more important things to say than this channel, the video would be gold.
It seems the account is self aware with tweets like the recent one that says "we exist to sell frozen meat" but they're clearly not allowed to break the anti capitalist barrier, even if they tried and they weren't fired. It reminds me of the Fight Club scene where [spoiler alert] the protagonist wants Bob to be honored instead of dying anonymously, and screams "his name was Robert Paulson!"... the rest of the members repeat that as a chant, across all chapters, without addressing the actual issue of anonymous members giving their lives for the project. A cult blind to their leaders.
Luckily we don't just have Steak Umm's marketing addressing important issues, we got this youtube channel addressing how marketing is marketing. As much as Steak umms is pandering, this youtube channel tops it #trueactivism
@@briannawaldorf8485 Sorry, so what? So this person, who isn't an expert, who isn't accountable to anyone, who isn't held to any standard of ethics, who runs this channel for profit, is a quality content creator you should listen to on social issues because this one video of brainless pandering isn't monetized?
First of all, the editing of the video has significantly improved compared to your previous videos. Regarding the subject of the video, I whole heartedly agree with you. I uninstalled Twitter a day after I installed it because I hate how these companies pretend to be our friends while they are committing human rights violations in 3rd world countries. I hope people recognize that companies don't care. They don't care about the LGBTQ community (evidenced by how the logo for the Twitter accounts for the Arabian countries of companies didn't change to a rainbow during Pride month). They just go with the flow and see which things are politically correct and then make a copy-paste message saying how they support this. They are utterly spineless.
Well good thing you found a youtube channel (made to make money pandering to you) to pretend to be your friend. Just ignore the line at the end of the video about not thinking a social media page built to sell a product (like a youtube channel made to pander to its audience) is ever worth listening to about anything.
@@constantreader1422 I think its interesting that you say companies don't care, but you think this youtube channel (which is a profit seeking business) does. This video is nothing more than purity testing based on flawed logic for the sake of 'woke clout' and profit. The video says you should not listen to profit seeking social media, which this channel is, and you go on to praise the channel while decrying others. So it seems like you are missing what is right in front of your face. Its not that this profit seeking channel can't call out other profit seekers for being problematic, but when all they are doing is saying, "dont listen to them, ignore what they said, not important, come listen to me talk about them not being good because they are a profit seeking company (like me but ignore that) and that is HUGELY problematic, trust me you cannot trust anything they say because they want profit (like me but ignore that), they are definitely leading to a BIG problem of loss of real advocacy due to online shoppers thinking they are advocates for buying meat, and I called them out for you because I am good. new video coming out soon."
@@constantreader1422 You honestly think no accountability, no expertise youtubers are quality information sources? The funny part is you think you have a valid point because you 'see the difference' but really you don't see the next thing, that they are both problematic. People like you, putting your trust and praise toward online personalities without understanding how problematic they are, are the reason we live in the age of conspiracy theories.
I was totally unaware of this brand before this all kicked off on twitter - they're not sold here in eastern Canada (maybe Canada wide?) so the first little while I had NO clue what was happening, lol! So glad you've given the background on this so I can see the full picture now :)
As someone doing their PhD in advertising, my only disagreement is that consumption *can* be activism. But only as far as dollars *not* going to certain businesses.
Not consuming a commodity is the negation of consumption, it's not activism. Consuming a competing company's commodity with the idea that you are opposing the first company assumes that there is nothing wrong with competing company nor the process of consumption nor the underlying economic processes. It's either an anemic and worthless kind of activism you're advocating for here or else (more likely) it's not really activism you're talking about. I think all the marketing wank you'e subjected yourself to might have melted your brain a bit.
When a brand is so hesitant about its nature: "wh... Jesuschrist, what is that smell?? Is that... steak??" "... ummm..." (dumb jokes aside: maybe don't let meat-adjacent products inform your discourse?)
Agree with everything you say here. Loved this! I do think that "consumption isn't activism" is correct, but there is consumption that promotes or helps activism. Buying from Steak-umm does not do that however.
A disturbing subtext of the specific Twitter thread in question is "wasn't it so much better when corporate media was in unquestioned control of the landscape of thought?"
I thought this was a vegan meat alternative so they at least would have that moral silver lining or if they donate parts of the profits for a cause they say they support this would be fantastic but this is just manipulative marketing at the end of the day. Seeing this makes me feel hollow :).
The sad part is that one rant wasn't wrong...It's a hell of a mindscrew when the hypocrite is correct while overlooking their own complicity in the things they rage against.
has steak-ums actually seen an increase in sales that can be reasonably assumed to be caused by that thread? advertising is advertising for sure, not saying the exposure doesn't help them, but did all the people tweeting about going out and buying steak-umms actually do that, and were there enough of them to make a noticeable difference, or was it more of a meme?
If the company is not an anarcho-syndicalist co-op or otherwise 100% worker owned, then no, they do not share my values regardless of what they happen to tweet.
I'm happy to say this is the very first I'm hearing of this Steak-umms... thing. I take it that my strict, unwavering absolutely-never-have-anything-to-do-with-Twitter policy is working for me.
Great job on this, Zoe! 💖 Although nothing in here is new to me personally, I think you did a really good job of describing the (usually really dry) abstract theory with an entertaining story, which is exactly what we need. A large part of the problem of spreading socialism is ... well it's the same problem most people have of trying to convince people with data, and yes, a good argument should be rooted in good data, but if we want to convince people to move over to good solutions (like socialism), the only way to do that is to wrap the good data in a story that engages them. And yes, this same technique is often used by bad actors like Shapiro and Fucker Carlson as well*, but this is the one part of the game we can't change. We can only hope to play this part of the game better than they do. * though they usually lean a lot harder on fear and anger as the emotions of choice
I haven't used Twitter in almost a decade, so I had no idea this was a thing. Fucking hell. The fact that so many people (the vast majority of whom I'm positive are extremely kind and socially conscious people with good heads on their shoulders) fell for such a blatant marketing gimmick disguised as social justice honestly came very close to blackpilling me.
I'm glad gen z seems to mostly be moving away from trusting and being fooled by personified corporations. I try not to bash whole generations but I've mostly seen millenials be swayed by that kind of stuff, or applaud the cute thing companies do where they change their pfps to pride logos except in their middle eastern accounts
I'm older Gen Z and I can agree with that. I'm pretty cynical of corporations. Maybe this is unfair, but by their nature they're completely untrustworthy. Most of my friends are in that sort of boat, but my suburbanite (stereotypically white and Christian) friends are easily swayed. Everything they say is incentivized. Everything they don't say is incentivized. The sooner we realize that we are dependent on companies to accumulate products for basic needs, and that they will do whatever they can go abuse that leverage, the sooner we can get to restricting their abuse and making meaningful progress. Until then, we are utterly being fucked.
While you are swayed by youtube channels? Either this video is irony, or it is unbelievably toxic. "do you see this marketing campaign talking about how people are too reliant on alternative media, have a flawed mistrust of experts, and lack awareness of their lack of access to and ability to understand information? Well don't listen to anything they say, they are a profit seeking entity, and they are tricking you! Who am I? Oh I am a youtuber, you know, part of the alternative media. Someone with no accountability or expertise, and a profit seeking entity. I'm here as a trust worthy voice. In the land of youtube, where I am desperately trying to hold onto some semblance of relevance in ever increasingly saturated markets, it’s hard to stand out. But I have fake woke activism clout from calling out fake woke activism. Your Queen Zoe Bee loves you!"
@@TrentYakle not necessarily, it's pretty easy to disagree with zoe's videos. If all it takes to be swayed to someone's opinion is hearing them talk about it, then your views aren't very strong in the first place. I've always been suspicious of corporations who do fake activism, and I honestly wasn't convinced of anything new by this video. Some people have interesting perspectives so I watched it to see how other people interpret the concept
@@Natalie-101 If your video doesn't change anyone's mind, then what's the point of making it in the first place? Preaching to the choir achieves nothing other than increasing the volume of the echo chamber. If that's the case, it means your only goal to reinforce how good of a person you are. And if THAT'S your goal, it means you were never interested in doing good, but rather making yourself appear like a good person. True activism requires sacrifice, risk, courage! Take chances, make mistakes, get messy! None of these things apply here. So what if the video doesn't do well? She can always just delete it and act like it never happened.
@@Nintendotron64 I don't remember what the original comment I was replying to was, so I don't remember the context, but based on your reply: Just because I wasn't convinced of anything new by this video doesn't mean it has no value. For me, I still got to hear a unique perspective and it was interesting. But the more important part is that many people who disagreed before probably saw this video and did change their mind, or at least consider her arguments. Just because some people agree doesn't mean her channel is preaching to an echo chamber because plenty of people also disagree and Zoe can potentially change their minds. My opinions have nothing to do with her channel's general effect on people
So I agree with all the points you've made here, it's a good video. My thought is, in the current internet culture, almost everything that gets attention was designed to make money (or to spread the "brand", which is a roundabout way of making money). This video itself was made to entertain and to educate, but also to make money. That fact doesn't invalidate the points it makes. So yes, a company using social activism as a tool to spread its brand is a little scummy, but I don't know that it's a net negative? If Nike donates a bunch of money to Doctors without Borders or something, that's advertising yes, but it seems good anyway. If a nominally-politically-neutral company kicks off a useful discourse, maybe that's still good?
You're kinda missing the forest for the trees here. The argument isn't "this was designed to make money, therefore, bad". Also, is a processed beef sheet manufacturer politically neutral? I'm not sure I'd be so confident as you to assert that.
@@rainbowkrampus "The argument isn't 'this was designed to make money, therefore, bad.'" I am asking this question out of genuine confusion, not as a rhetorical ploy. I will at least attempt to accept any answer you give me as the correct one. Is it not? I'm having trouble seeing how it's not.
This reminded me a lot of hbomberguy's "Woke Brands" video. I think they make really good companion pieces. I guess the question for me now is how to get out of this cycle of consumption. I find it really hard; even this is consumption, right?
Just a random entomologist passing by! I loved your introduction clip. Even though it is not actually a bee, the fly you have there is more fascinating in my opinion. It is known as the Bombyliidae fly (Bee Fly). They are adorable!
Hadn't heard of Steak-umm until I saw one of these tweets. I am ashamed to say I retweeted with something like "go off dude hope you don't get fired" not realizing of course this was approved before it was posted. As a vegetarian the thought never occurred to buy their products but perhaps my engagement convinced some one else to do so.
nah, in this case steak-umms lets their social media guy (nathan allebach) do basically whatever he wants because his threads like this get them plenty of media attention which is the entire point of their social media presence in the first place he's a professional food marketing guy for a day job and he's most well-known for handling steak-umms, he's talked about it publicly a lot, but off the clock he's a legit leftist (here's the guy's RL account: twitter.com/nathanallebach) his steak-umms twitter threads are simultaneously sincere expressions of what he believes as a person separate from his employment and a way to spread brand awareness and get greater exposure because a corporation's social media is spreading long threads about leftist-adjacent topics so they're gross the way any Brand Social Media stuff is gross, but they aren't a carefully crafted corporate message or anything
5:17 can we all just appreciate the very small pun in this tweet? We’ll go back to bashing brands in a few seconds, but damn, that pun is so innocuous, it makes all the more hilarious
I’m old. I remember when Steak-umms first came on the market. I remember trying that product as a teenager. Ugh! I didn’t even know the company still existed. Based on my experience, I would have thought that they had gone out of business a long time ago.
Either this video is irony, or it is unbelievably toxic. Its a great example of why not to rely on youtubers to understand the world. "do you see this marketing campaign talking about how people are too reliant on alternative media, have a flawed mistrust of experts, and lack awareness of their lack of access to and ability to understand information? Well don't listen to anything they say, they are a profit seeking entity, and they are tricking you! Who am I? Oh I am a youtuber, you know, part of the alternative media. Someone with no accountability or expertise, and a profit seeking entity. I'm here as a trust worthy voice. In the land of youtube, where I am desperately trying to hold onto some semblance of relevance in ever increasingly saturated markets, it’s hard to stand out. But I have fake woke activism clout from calling out fake woke activism. Your Queen Zoe Bee loves you!"
This new era of brand marketing, whether they're aware of this or not, is a *clear* and present example of the cultivation and manipulation of parasocial relationships. Propaganda making you think they are your friends is a menacing concept, and it's only going to get worse as long as [CURRENT ECONOMIC SYSTEM] is present.
That rant at 4:58 reminds me very strongly of the closing scene of the Black Mirror episode Fifteen Million Merits. It's a depressing episode, I recommend it unless you're not doing well emotionally. It's also reminiscent of Tyler Durdens rant in the movie Fight Club, about the middle children of history. The former is Bing's rage being commodified for the entertainment of the masses (with some small benefits for him), and the latter being about generating a cult mentality, which seems to resonate strongly with this Stake-Emmz stuff. I know there are different readings of the two texts I mentioned, but they sprung to my mind anyway. Love your work Zoe!
Just found your channel, I love that super dry and flat sense of humor you have! I'm only at 1:37 and already laughed a few times lol. New favorite commentary channel :)
I woukd pretty well agree, but I would give the caveat that the natural escalation of this could lead to actual change. If every brand starts doing this, it loses its novelty. The only way to keep the novelty alive would be to actually *do* something to further the ideals they claim to support. The fact that this would even be necessary just shows how massively our regulatory system is hosed.
A good question is, aren't there activists (who aren't companies) who also make money from what they do or from spreading a certain message? Also, does spreading a message truly create a complacency? Or rather awareness?
1) Seems like more of a non sequitur than a good question to me. 2) You'd need to define awareness and show that it is useful as well as show how these are mutually exclusive outcomes.
@@rainbowkrampus 1. Why? 2. By awareness I simply mean: more people hearing about something. "More people hearing about something" doesn't seem to cause this complacency effect claimed in the video.
I wish I had u as an English teacher when I was younger. I ended up dropping out of highschool at grade 10 and never fully realized the "consequences" of having no education in life. I had to learn on my own how to love life, appreciate what I have, and truly enjoy myself and my life. You really have a way of putting importance on us as individuals so I can imagine that your students have an easier time to see the things I struggled to discover on my own. I love your work and you're doing a great thing.
Kudos! I clicked as soon as I'd seen you posted, and I'm glad I did. Love your intonation on "authenticity." Great use of music in the big thread section. Kudos to Neil on the art and vid editing! "Frozen sheets of meat." "Companies will literally only do something if it makes them money. That's capitalism, folks." "What isn't good is how it Affects Out Behavior." "It IS a commercial." "Consumption isn't activism . . . substantive change." "It's an ad. And you fell for it." Also, Name Recognition can get you to buy it, even if you don't like them: If you're in the store or writing a grocery list or ordering online, and you first think of Steak-Umm - or, like me 12 minutes into this video, can't think of the name of any other sandwich meat company without racking your brain for two minutes - you'll end up buying or recommending Steak-Umm just for the convenience, or out of rushed necessity. [Edit: Hormel! Hormel sells sandwich meat.] Damn it, my capitalist overlords have given me another 20 minutes of unpaid lunch and I actually want to try this crap now, even though I'm sure that wasn't your intention. Would love your take on Ben & Jerry's social justice platform.
I think you are right that it is just an ad and it doesn't DIRECTLY affect anything BUT it definitely spreads the message and does it in a comedic way. That sort of communication can and probably will change how people ACT.
To support what you're saying, I asked myself "why would they create a twitter account if not for advertising?" And I can't think of an answer other than advertising their products
cant believe your channel is less than a year old. youre one of my favourite youtubers and even though i usually struggle to keep my attention on a 15 or 20 minute long video i've watched your 30 minute and even 50 minute long videos from start to finish because they're just so fascinating. i love how you talk and how you present the information, and things that ive learned in your videos are things that i actually remember, because you show them in a way that is interesting and entertaining. im really glad i found your channel a few months ago
Damn Zoe, this video played out like a movie where the protagonist unfolds the truth about a evil genius who creates fake robotic killer robots only to end up getting employed as a hero by the city.. to help fight for change .
Did it? Either this video is irony, or it is unbelievably toxic. "do you see this marketing campaign talking about how people are too reliant on alternative media, have a flawed mistrust of experts, and lack awareness of their lack of access to and ability to understand information? Well don't listen to anything they say, they are a profit seeking entity, and they are tricking you! Who am I? Oh I am a youtuber, you know, part of the alternative media. Someone with no accountability or expertise, and a profit seeking entity. I'm here as a trust worthy voice. In the land of youtube, where I am desperately trying to hold onto some semblance of relevance in ever increasingly saturated markets, it’s hard to stand out. But I have fake woke activism clout from calling out fake woke activism. Your Queen Zoe Bee loves you!"
Love this. Steakumms should change their logo to "Steak? Ummmm..." My greatest wish is for companies to abandon the mass acquisition of wealth, to abandon profiteerist practices, or profiteerism altogether, and just start doing the right thing by their customers. I always know that subliminal messaging comes in many forms and this is just one form used by steakumms to increase profits. Delivering a quality product to the customer is what a company should be doing and should've always been doing. My father had a 1941 Ford Coupe 5L V8 that ran better than most brand new cars, despite the lack of maintenance on my fathers part. Now fords can't go more than 100K miles without exploding. The fact that a company would write some insightful tweets to get customers to trust them and still delivery sub-sub-sub-par food product is grossly unethical, IMO. Quality products at an affordable price is the only way companies should be earning the customers trust. Shame on companies that employ these practices and shame the customers who saw these twits and started buying steakumms en masse.
Ironic how they claim to be "against injustice and oppression in all forms" while selling body parts of sentient animals who were killed for the mere sensual pleasure of the human oppressor.
SenSuAl PlEasuRe Completely ignoring that animal products are one of the best sources of nutrition out there. Like don't be cringe and do the lion diet but really have some meat on your plate for your own health.
The fact that this kind of advertising is more profitable than some fence-sitting bs is a good thing. It's a good indicator of the general attitude toward these ideas.
we worried so much about youtubers fostering parasocial relationships, when perhaps the real threat of parasocial relationships was how brands will foster them...
Then there’s the slimjim accounts, where people know they’re being advertised to with the meat memes and his ex Jessica but they talk to the admin instead of the brand, and he somehow hasn’t gotten fired yet
For those who haven't seen it, Hbomberguy did something very similar to this on his channel. It's very good! This is also very good Zoe. I'm glad I found your channel!
Really interesting analysis, now we can see how far the rabbit hole goes in terms of corporations as people, it's not just a legal category but a cultural one. Reminds of me of Hbomberguy's video on "Woke Brands".
Yeah it's due to multifaceted and at least partially disingenuous motivations on their part, but tbh I think the consumers' behavioral changes aren't inherently without agency. Personally, I'm completely fine with rewarding companies for spreading important useful messages and adding nuance (or at least parroting established but insufficiently prevalent nuance) to current social discourse. It doesn't bother me that this is becoming part of the social contract between corporations and consumers 🤷♂️ and I figure it's a step on the road toward companies gradually being caused/motivated to actually demonstrate the values they speak about on social media. Change takes time and this seems like an improvement, to me.
I think I did like the original post, and you're absolutely right that going out and BUYING steakums over this is just bad form, i think there is the shred of merit in seeing this kind of thing work. Because it does show these ideas are becoming popular. And as a side note, am I right in thinking you used a different insult every time for the steakums? Because that is impressive.
feels good to stay away from twitter and seing these... bizarre comemrcials. on tumblr i get priceless commercials like "start sleeping with your soap tonight, here's why". and every single one of tumblrs ads looks so shady i never ever touch them.
That first thread really is... Like, I think they draw the wrong conclusion. Kinda stopping before really formulating any sentiment of "how do we deal with this?" and just leaving it stand as "brand accounts on Twitter are the new social networks and welcoming communities that make people feel safe, actually" But the analysis itself, the situational placement? Actually impressive and still relevant, over two years later.
It is legitimately distressing to me to see people tweet in agreement/interact with brands online. Makes want to scream "YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU'RE DOING RIGHT?"
To support the Steak-umm's Tweeter, we shoulda NOT bought Steak-umm, to show we understood the message, and instead tweet about how the Steak-umm tweeter should be promoted AND how we won't buy Steak-umm as a show of solidarity This Definitely Solves Everything
I've never heard of steak-ummm before, and I don't live in a country where it is sold, but your 'it might only maybe be a meat product' talk has successfully advertised this as an interesting thing that I would now like to try.
Perfect choice of song. Sure some of the references are dated/localised but the story remains the same. Big fan of Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson. Also apt is Coca Cola is well known for hiring far right militias in Columbia to murder and terrorise union members/organisers.
The the worst thing is I'm at the end of my shift today and and I'm hungry, and all I could think was, that looks tasty. I'm a communist and I'm still easily taken in with pictures of products.
Eh, that's just the way brains work. You ever go grocery shopping while hungry? Bad move. You end up buying a bunch of crap you don't need and too much crap to boot. Marketing does prey on weakness. The key is to acknowledge that we are capable of being weak and to understand when and how that happens in order to avoid putting ourselves in situations where we can be preyed upon.
I hadn't heard of Steak-Umm before seeing this as we don't have it in the UK, though we do have a fine selection of pulped, emulsified and reformed meat products of our own. I can't believe that a company responsible for that kind of food would try this kind of advertising, and much less that it would actually succeed. This is a very strange world. I love this video style by the way, animation with voice over worked really well.
If someone says something progressive, I am glad. I'll tell them I agree. I may thank them for saying it. But I do NOT owe them something in return for saying it. Thank you, Steak Umm, for speaking up on these matters. Now I'll go buy whatever I want.
