![After this blog post, Anil Dash was “cautiously optimistic” to see Popchips’ response and as per his expectation, Popchips’ founder Keith Belling phoned and offered him “a thoughtful, apologetic response” that indicates Keith’s understanding of what he was trying to say in that blog post.
So, what really happened? Recently, Popchips introduced a series of promotional videos that featured Ashton Kutcher playing different characters. One of the characters featured the celebrity spokesperson of Popchips in brownface and was a parody of an Indian Bollywood producer. Longtime blogger and Internet observer Anil Dash was rightly offended. He complained. Others joined him and within hours, the video was down.
It’s a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he’s doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That’s it, there’s seriously no other gag. […] Naturally, a bunch of us (initially mostly Indian diaspora members whom I follow on Twitter) started complaining about it, and a number of like-minded allies also registered their offense as well. I can’t imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad “funny” accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course.
In many ways, the entire story explains the power of the Internet to provide instant and loud feedback.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3hl2fZFJZ1r8dxvuo1_250.jpg)
After this blog post, Anil Dash was “cautiously optimistic” to see Popchips’ response and as per his expectation, Popchips’ founder Keith Belling phoned and offered him “a thoughtful, apologetic response” that indicates Keith’s understanding of what he was trying to say in that blog post.
So, what really happened? Recently, Popchips introduced a series of promotional videos that featured Ashton Kutcher playing different characters. One of the characters featured the celebrity spokesperson of Popchips in brownface and was a parody of an Indian Bollywood producer. Longtime blogger and Internet observer Anil Dash was rightly offended. He complained. Others joined him and within hours, the video was down.
It’s a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he’s doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That’s it, there’s seriously no other gag. […] Naturally, a bunch of us (initially mostly Indian diaspora members whom I follow on Twitter) started complaining about it, and a number of like-minded allies also registered their offense as well. I can’t imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad “funny” accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course.
In many ways, the entire story explains the power of the Internet to provide instant and loud feedback.
Twitter Notes. Graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor on clayboard. 2012. Courtesy of Postmasters Gallery.
Your Facebook profile pic will need a quick refresh as Facebook has changed the size of the profile pic on all pages and the new profile pic size is 160 x 160 pixels, which is noticeably larger than the old size of 125 x 125 and they’ve not much to say about this change.
Actually, there is no choice and, if you can believe your eyes and ears (I did), I came to know that it was all happening because of mobile devices.
(via infoneer-pulse)
Just Say No!
I click Close on every single one of these dialogs because I have no idea what (ever greater) permissions I’m giving to Facebook and their partners. This shit drives me insane.
Just because I want to read one article or view one video doesn’t mean I want everyone to know about every article and video I view in the future.
Facebook seems unstoppable but I wish someone would beat them and put them out of our misery.
Exactly. “Facebook seems unstoppable” and so does every other social networking sites we use everyday.
Popular social networking site Facebook just added a organ donor status option for your Facebook Timeline »
Today, Facebook unveiled an organ donor status option for your Timeline, a move meant to help more than 114,000 people in the U.S. and millions more around the world who are awaiting a potentially life-saving heart, kidney, or liver transplant. […] To become an official organ donor, you must sign up with the appropriate state organ donor registry. Most people do this when they first get their driver’s license. If you haven’t already done so, however, Facebook is providing a link to those registries next to the Organ Donor menu on your profile.
Sharing from Instagram to Twitter is now double what it was two months ago, and 20x what it was a year ago.
(via Royal Pingdom)
Nokia Russia lifts the mood with ‘Amazing’ shows of public affection »
What better way to break the awkward silence in an elevator than to fill it with Angry Birds and a singing swat team.
Pinterest, the virtual pinboard, is (some believe) Tumblr with some different features. For some, it’s essentially a well designed interface for Amazon wish lists. But brands and companies have already noticed that Pinterest is a hot cake and users are addicted to pinning images on Pinterest »
While research points to a continued decline in interest in social bookmarking sites, the surging popularity of Pinterest would indicate that the urge to share and comment upon other people’s Web discoveries is still alive and well. […] Sites like Delicious, Digg and Reddit, which permit people to save and share Web pages, may have declined in popularity in the face of more functional social networks, but sharing links is one of the most popular social networking activities. Pinterest just adds a visual dimension.
