Must have been a slow news week in the industry, as Advertising Age allowed resident nutcase Bob Garfield to commandeer the front cover with his infantile fuss versus Comcast. Admittedly, MultiCultClassics only read the lead sentence before scrolling through a seemingly endless expulsion of editorial excrement.
The lead sentence said enough: “Bob Garfield’s jihad against his cable provider makes one thing clear: Companies ignore customer-service complaints at their own risk.”
Not sure why Garfield referred to himself by name. It probably made him feel more important—although, in typical sloppy fashion, he eventually transitioned to first person tense. [Update: AdAge.com originally posted the piece with an editor’s lead-in that appeared to the opening of the story.]
Anyway, going back to the lead sentence, it’s appalling that Garfield calls his silly squabble a jihad.
Last year, a car dealer in Ohio offended people with a commercial proclaiming a jihad on the U.S. auto market. Sure, Garfield will likely argue that he didn’t take the imagery as far as the jerk in Ohio. Plus, he might also point out that dictionary definitions for jihad include, “any vigorous, emotional crusade for an idea or principle.”
Whatever.
The truth is, Garfield has consistently demonstrated that he’s insensitive and culturally clueless. He’s sadly symbolic of the ruling majority on Madison Avenue.
It’s no coincidence that Garfield’s words and actions mirror those of a stereotypical car dealer too.
i'm happy to put up with the constant name calling. and i can tolerate the constant mischaracterizations of work you haven't even read -- for example this story, in which you confuse the subhead, written by a copy editor, with my lead paragraph.
ReplyDeletebut you'd better stop with the racial insults. i will not put up with that.
i don't care if you post this, but take me at my word: stop the racial epithets NOW.
-- garfield
Oops. Sorry, Mr. Garfield. Adage.com was confusing in its original posting, which has been revised since yesterday.
ReplyDeleteRacial epithets? It’s always interesting to see the reactions to commentary.
We’ve consistently viewed the majority of insensitivity to be based on unfamiliarity versus overt and deliberate motivations.
And we’re always pushing the envelope on these issues, questioning ourselves as well as others.
That said, we’ve revised the post.
All the best and thanks for the comments.
Bob - Where does the MultiCult post here use racial epithets again?
ReplyDeleteAs for name calling, you can call all of us teeming morons as you did previously, that's cool, we like the attention.
I'm also 100% for consumer rights, having bitched several times about my own Comcast issues, but you seriously don't see how using the word ‘Jihad’ and Jihad theme in your commentary is the least bit offensive?
Forget for a second if we were just talking about it being insulting to Muslims, its use in the context of your anti-Comcast articles/posts trivializes the real meaning of the word that our military in Iraq currently experiences.
In Mr. Garfield’s defense, the original post referred to him as an insensitive and ignorant Old White Man. Look for a follow-up post addressing the issue in the coming days.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected then because I only saw this post that's up now.
ReplyDelete