Corporate America Doesn’t Like Controversy
By kenya on Jul 9, 2008 in In the News
Last week I saw on iGoogle (probably in the TechDirt feed) that 1938 Media had inked a deal with Verizon Wireless to distribute 1938 Media content on its VCast service. I didn’t get to read it because it was a busy day. 1938 Media was no stranger to me, however, after all the controversy that his TechNi***: Where are the Black Tech Bloggers? video caused on the Videoblogging Yahoogroup a year ago. (Google it). So then Monday I see in my email from the Electronic Urban Report that Najee Ali, Paul Porter and other activists were calling for Verizon Wireless to withdraw the distribution deal. I thought that interesting that this was in the Electronic Urban Report and also since the infamous video was about a year old. I wondered if the boycott would work. Apparently it did because the next day the Electronic Urban Report was reporting that Verizon dropped 1938 Media from the VCast service.
Now folks are crying “outrage” and “conspiracy”. What you have here is the basic tenet that corporations don’t like controversy. Corporations care about one color: green. And if some controversy threatens that green they will drop the source of the controversy. It’s simple. Outside of Hollywood and the music industry, controversy doesn’t get you far in real life.
I read a lot of comments on TechCrunch saying the video wasn’t racist and that political correctness is evil. It’s easy to say when you’re not a member of the group being ridiculed. A minstrel show is a minstrel show.
I also saw many say that if a Black person had made the same video then everyone would think it’s okay. There were even comments about the “activists”. I took a little time to Google Najee Ali to find out what else he’s been into. Just last month Najee Ali and Paul Porter were apparently protesting the depiction of violence in an Ashanti video. He consistently protested R. Kelly, even outside the courthouse at his trial two months ago. Ali led a protest threatening an NBC boycott over the inclusion of Snoop Dogg in It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. As long ago as 1999, Ali protested 1999 NAACP Image Awards given to Jay-Z and Big Pun for recognizing “gangster rappers that call each other [n-words] and denigrate black women.” There is a lot more about Najee Ali and his various protests all over Google but I will stop there; I think it’s shown that Ali protests anyone who portrays Black people with this gangster/pimp image whether or not they are Black.
I would also like to point out this post that I also saw: BET, probably the single largest purveyor of negative Black images, has apparently lost some sponsors due to viewers petitioning those sponsors directly. For Black people and others negatively portrayed in the media it’s about having more realistic images. For the corporations it’s about business. Controversy is not good for business.
Back to 1938 Media, this quote from Bill Cammack says it all:
Sphere: Related ContentThe resurgence is due to Loren stepping outside of the Echo Chamber with his Verizon deal and exposing himself to people who don’t give a damn about Social Media AT ALL, but DO CARE who companies that they patronize associate with… as well as what those people appear to stand for.
6 Comment(s)
Great writeup. Thx
Touche! Almost as if it is not about right/wrong, but about the bottom line. A little bit of preemptive research on a new/potential business partner (as you did), could have given them all the information they needed to prepare a ‘perceived’ “crisis” communication plan.
Hey Kenya.
Thanks for the quote.
The thing about all this is that it really has less to do with racism and more to do with VOLATILITY.
The question is “What is this person liable to do in the present or future to embarrass or devalue our company”. The other question is “When our customers look into the past offerings of people that are now on our roster, are they going to find concepts that we don’t want to be identified with?”
Guilt By Association works in the corporate world as much as it does in social situations. This is why some sexual harassment cases get pressed.
It’s not that the higher-ups necessarily feel negatively towards the guy that harassed the woman… It’s that there are checks and balances in place that attempt to ensure a safe and comfortable environment for everyone to work in. They have to press the charge, even if the guy’s a friend of theirs, or those checks and balances will work against THEM instead of just HIM.
On top of that, the harasser should have KNOWN THIS and acted correctly from the get. By deciding to do what he did, he forced the company’s hand into doing what THEY did.
Similarly, if you’re going to make offensive videos, you have to own the consequences of people viewing your content, whether it’s in context or not. I do my dating blog, and some people just hate it! hahahaha
In order to post what I do, however… I need to OWN my content. Not ownership as in copyright, but realizing that if someone reads my dating blog and decides that they don’t want to work with me on a project, that’s one of the consequences of my self-expression. Similarly, if someone enjoys my blogging, they may look to see what else I do and I might get business BECAUSE of it.
Either way, it all comes down to each of us owning our content, and realizing that some things are going to REMAIN an albatross around that person’s neck every single time he/she attempts to make something good happen in their lives.
Is that fair? Maybe not. Is that reality? ….
LIKE A MUHHHHH…….
Bill Cammacks last blog post..Lindsey & Bill: Does He Want To Be Friends?
Yep Bill. People fail to realize that whether or not we want to be, we are accountable for our actions online or off. And it doesn’t matter so much when you’re Joe Schmoe just saying what you want to say. But it will matter when a corporate bottom line is involved. The funny thing with Verizon is that it could not only be the customers complaining but the employees as well and that opens them up to all kinds of liability issues.
nishland, That is exactly what it’s about – the bottom line. And thanks, Courtney.
I appreciate you sharing your input Kenya. We definitely are accountable for our actions and I know I definitely share how I fell. But unfortunately, I still feel that as a society we are going backwards from all this racism I have experiencing so much online. Makes me want to disappear offline again. I have seen enough.
Jennifers last blog post..Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words » Corporate America Doesn’t Like Controversy
Did you see that Loren Feldman actually threatened Lynne Johnson? He’s a racist and bully, a complete embarrassment to any sponsors. No wonder he got dropped.