What happens when corporations try to become #relatable
Corporations.
They own the media we consume: from the food we eat, to the TV we watch, to the social media on which we dankly meme. And thanks to good old-fashioned American capitalist hegemony, they aren’t likely to go away any time soon. They may be annoying, but they serve a purpose (said economics professors, at least). But why do they feel the need to be hashtag #relatable, on God’s green Earth?
It all started with Denny’s on Tumblr. Whatever miserable intern, who was tasked with the unenviable job of managing the account of the world’s 42nd-largest restaurant chain on the world’s 10th-most-popular social media network, decided to, instead of your standard “Buy cheap grease here at 3 in the morning,” post some #dank #memes about breakfast food.
Tumblr fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Everybody was talking about Denny’s Tumblr page. First they asked “Is this real?” then “Is Denny’s okay?” and soon enough “Is this genius?” People were talking about it. And when people talk, Madison Avenue advertising executives takes notice. So Madison Avenue took notice and did what Madison Avenue does — proceed to milk the heck out of it.
Now Tumblr is a pretty #woke site, all things considered, and this state of affairs was certainly not going to last. It was just so craven, and in our post-post-post-ironic age of media, novelty just wasn’t enough.
In April 2017, Tumblr user leviathan-supersystem shared the following text as a cultural experiment: "John C. Miller, CEO and President of the Denny’s Corporation, is a capitalist running dog and his wealth must be seized and redistributed to the people." In two days, Denny's posted a chat-style meme about it. By that point, it was just tired, and so were we.
But Tumblr, as cutting edge as it is, isn’t just a cultural behemoth on the level of Twitter or Facebook. So when Tumblr fell out of love with quote-unquote “relatable” memes from giant brands, Twitter pages took it up, immediately followed by Facebook and Instagram.
So now we’ve reached a point where Wendy’s is an insult comic, Arby’s posts Danganronpa fanart made of ketchup and SunnyD vague books about depressive episodes. It all rings so false, so “How do you do fellow kids?"
The most recent, and dare I say most egregious example of this trend, is the abomination known as “Baby Nut.” Mr. Peanut was killed in an exploding vehicle during a wacky hijink, according to the plot of a major Planters advertisement campaign (and I can NOT believe I had to write this sentence).
When Kobe Bryant died in an exploding vehicle, the campaign was canceled (sort of?). Instead of throwing out the whole idea as tasteless from the very start, some advertisement executive suit saw that the youths love Baby Groot and Baby Yoda, so they made their own hideous poorly-rendered baby mascot!
Fun fact: Mr. Peanut was designed in a contest in 1916 by a young child who was paid a grand total of $5 for his creation. Regardless of how much the executives who approved Baby Nut were paid, two things are certain: it was more than $5, and it shouldn’t have been more than $5!
Legally, corporations might be people — thanks, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)! — but we all know that in any real sense they aren’t anything but massive organizations with one goal: taking our money.
We know they just want to take our money, and they know we know they just want to take our money. So why do they keep on putting up this facade? Is anyone being fooled by this? Is fooling us even the point anymore? Was there ever a point to it?
