Supplement company Protein World recently put this ad into wide circulation.
Oh good, another advertisement meant to terrify women into believing that our bodies aren’t good enough to be seen in public without buying a bunch of products. Another message to teen girls that the only good body is a photoshopped body. Another company trying to steal our self-esteem, cheapen it, and sell it back to us at a profit.
Looking at Protein World’s online presense, at least the ad is in keeping with their tendency to show women as objects (their most common social media picture is a woman’s ass – no head necessary because who cares about what’s in a woman’s head amirite! .
People started to write over the ads and create responses in glorious fashion, as well as calling Protein World out on social media. And then PW responded in a way that makes me think that they want to be the official supplement company of Reddit and 4chan:
Note the common technique here – start by suggesting that women should have to look a certain way to deserve to exist in the world, trying to create insecurity as a sales tactic. When called on it, try to act like it’s about “health.” (We’re not oppressing you ladies, we’re making you feel like shit so you buy our product in the hopes that you can manipulate your body so that we’ll approve of the way you look…ya know, for your health. CAN’T YOU SEE IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!!!)
Like their supplements, I’m not buying this for a second.
And then this from the company CEO:
Keep it classy there Arjun. PW continues to double down on social media, being proud of the fact that they won’t back down from hardcore stance of trying to create and prey on female insecurity to sell pills and shakes. People who think that they deserve better continue to fight back:
There is a petition with over 35K signatures at https://www.change.org/p/proteinworld-arjun-seth-remove-are-you-beach-body-ready-advertisements/u/10605866
You can find them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProteinWorld
You can find them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/proteinworldnutrition
You can also always buy your supplements elsewhere, and you can remember:
Picture courtesy of the fabulous Jodee Rose http://jodee.deviantart.com
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