PRO: Budweiser #UpForWhatever vs. #NoMeansNo
Bud Light has made headlines with a marketing campaign that condones rape.
Its “#UpForWhatever” campaign has sparked controversy with a label that reads “The perfect beer for removing’ no’ from your vocabulary for a night.”
Bud Light, without a doubt, has not chosen its words carefully, but does it really mean rape? Are all beer drinkers potential rapists just looking to use Bud Light for the go ahead and to take action on their lifelong dream to rape? Could it just mean let your hair down and enjoy yourself? Does it have to mean sex?
If this terrible sentence is read directly after reading the campaign slogan it changes everything. Are you “up for whatever?” Yes! is that so crazy?
#UpForWhatever was a harmless, original ad campaign until groups of tightly wound, bottled up perverts had to turn it into "rape culture"
— Stop Apologizing USA (@GrovelingUSA) April 30, 2015
There is no question that rape, especially date rage is related to alcohol. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc., alcohol is a factor in 40 percent of all violent crimes today, 30 percent of those are of rapes and sexual assaults.
However this slogan is not trying to sell rape, it’s trying to sell a good time.
If we are to be critical of this slogan, then we must also be equally critical toward the hundreds of liquor ads selling sex. Is attaching sex to liquor not the same? Where is the controversy on those ads? If people are smart enough not think that is promoting rape, why do we see Bud Light’s slogan so much differently. Is it just about the word “no?”
The whole argument is, by taking the word “no” out of our vocabulary, in turn it also takes it out of the slogan “no means no.” It’s a stretch but it was enough for Bud Light to remove the slogan from the label and apologize for marketing faux pax.
Unfortunately that still won’t fix the rape problem in America.
Education is what is needed to fight against the rape culture in America. Not making everything about rape. Teaching our youth about rape and how to avoid situations that would put them in the face of danger. Will go a lot further than nitpicking a slogan?
The Rand Corporation conducted a study that suggested there is a positive correlation between alcohol advertising and underage drinking; however, it showed that there was a much stronger impact on attitudes including “factors like peer and family influences that affect both drinking and ad exposure.”
That same education would make it very to see that this slogan on a beer, has nothing to do with rape.
Rape is a huge problem in America, and is nothing to take lightly. Maybe if we replace “Yes!” with every “No,” we could kill rape forever.
Go have some fun, don’t worry about work, school or the real world for a night.
I am “#UpForWhatever.”