Dear Jessica, I feel sorry for you. Really I do. You got up on Friday and tweeted that it would be a good day, without having any idea that by the end of it you’d have lost your sponsorship and your FHM title and been reported to the Human Rights Commission (HRC). So I’d like […]
Posted inMedia
What does LinkedIn have to do with nude yoga?
More than you’d expect, actually. I’ll state this right upfront: I love to hate the world’s largest business social network. The random, irrelevant contact requests from so-called “friends”. The dull, tiresomely self-promoting discussion topics. Half the people on it haven’t updated their profiles since the Rinderpest. Oh yes, and then there’s the fact that after […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Africa = Social + media + revolution
By Rick de Kock In the space of barely a year, our continent has injected a unique African meaning into the phrase “social media revolution”. Only in Africa has tangible meaning been attached to each of those words in such dramatic ways. In addition to social and political revolutions, Africa’s tremendous economic progress in recent […]
Posted inMedia
Did Durex screw its own brand?
Handing your Twitter account over to a complete doos is the PR equivalent of giving a loaded gun to a drooling moron. Jen Thorpe has written about the Durex Twitter cock-up from a feminist stance. Inevitably, there are those who can’t see anything wrong with what Durex did. But from a brand point of view, […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Durex cocks it up on the eve of 16 Days
I received a forwarded horrific tweet moments ago. The tweet in question came from Durex SA, and went as follows: @DurexSA: Why did God give men penises? So they’d have at least one way to shut a woman up. #DurexJoke When I pointed out to them that this endorsed violence against women, their response was: […]
Posted inLifestyle
Supermodels are normal too…aren’t they?
Marie Claire SA had an interesting idea for their November issue. They decided to call it the “Love Your Body” issue and invite six major South African ad agencies to come up with campaigns to encourage ordinary women to love the bodies they’ve got. I have yet to see the images they produced, but by […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, Sport
Rugby and the nation: Tweeting our devastation
“Sympathies to the Wallabies,” tweets the comedian Brendan Jack. “After the tournament, they still have to go back to Australia.” It’s a sardonic comment on a morning which for many across South Africa has been an emotional rollercoaster. I’m very aware of this because I’ve watched my fellow citizens veer crazily from hope to despair […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Darren: A new word for our dictionaries
Darr-en Transitive verb 1 To use racial epithets to refer to a member of another racial group. 2 To racially abuse another individual. 3 To explain the repeated use of verboten racist epithets on the grounds of anger, stress and/or drunkenness. 4 (Possible future use) To beg forgiveness for the use of racist language. Noun […]