Friday, January 29, 2010

Frontin'?

Via Towleroad, here is the Super Bowl ad for the gay dating site ManCrunch that CBS will not run, despite the fact that they are letting Tim Tebow and his mom hawk a hate group that wants to rob gays and women of their rights. First of all, is this site even real? And if it is, my only problem with this ad is that it's completely unrealistic. I mean, really. How many times have you been at a Super Bowl party where you were shocked when two guys kissed? And if the site really is -- as it says in fine print on the bottom of its homepage -- for "connecting men with other men and allowing them to open up about the down low," then would the guys really be doing it in front of one of their "shocked" straight friends? And isn't calling it "on the down low" more of a black thing? (White men are Park 'n' Riders.) The fact that the service is free and came out of nowhere makes me think it's really a front for some rightwing organization trying to collect data on closeted men. Oh, wait. They already have that: they're called GOP voter registration records.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Not that i think the ad is all that great or anything but it wouldn't be the worse commercial i have ever seen broadcast.
Just as a side note Although on the DL or "Down low" may have been put into the popular consciousness as an African-American phenomenon, it is most certainly not exclusive to that ethnicity (just look at Craigslist)and its use explicitly informs about the nature of any individuals involved in "discreet" M2M sexual behavior. Description "Black thing" in 1985 = great,forward-thinking,and insightful...2010,not so much.

Mike in Brooklyn said...

This ad SHOULD be an embarrassment to the ad agency and ad producer/production company. Sure, most gay guys just want to hook up with other "just guys". $2 million to run the spot, and this is the quality of the message? I'd wouldn't waste my time even with an intro free trial; back to Craigslist.

Kenneth M. Walsh said...

My point about "down low" was that it was definitely a phrase coined by the black community, so I found it amusing that it's on some tacky site with two white guys making out. You'd have to be going out of your way to think that I don't know that married men of all races have cheated on their wives with other men, but if I MUST reword this post, I will (and have).

Lynn said...

This ad was DESIGNED to be rejected. You know the drill: Try to place you ad on the Super Bowl (even though you could never pay for a Super Bowl ad in a million years), express indignation when the suits at CBS refuse to run your ad, and use the publicity from that to get the people you really want to see it to watch it on YouTube (via Kenneth in the 212).

Scott Tyson said...

Lynn is EXACTLY right. This is a total PR stunt designed to generate a bunch of free publicity to the site. I am sure whatever agency created this knew what would cause CBS to reject it and made sure to include that in the ad. It's just like what GoDaddy has done for a few years now.

David in Houston said...

Let's see... crappy production values... unattractive actors... two guys that are never actually shown kissing... black guy eating fried chicken with "gay panic" look on his face... perfect!

I agree with Lynn. This ad was DESIGNED to be rejected.