I tend to think I'm on the thick-skinned side. So when my reaction to my morning email from Thrillist was offense, after the quick jolt of emotive response, I then stepped back to think about it for a moment.
Thrillist is supposed to be the Daily Candy for straight guys. They don't try to be "straight" like a Details reader, but more in a meat-and-potatoes, stock analyst, priority seating at Scores type of way. The writing on their daily messages tends to be a tad on the fratboy side, but it's typically tolerable as they'll point out the occasional shop, restaurant, product or website of note and are on occasion dead-on in finding quality items out of the scope of the gay ghetto of most media.
Today's message (full version of it post-jump) promoted a website that purports to present advertising in it's most pure form, sans "softness". Pretty much the site presents basic products, breaks them down elementally, and throws in what may be manatee-generated curse words. It does this over and over again and seems to see itself as quite "bad-ass", but then pussies out at the end with the disclaimer: 'All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective parties."
All of this is done under the banner of AIDSvertising. Now, the name is supposed to shock you and perhaps convince you that they are no-holds-barred. At first, the name did set me back a moment. There's been this turn where AIDS is no longer seen as a killer but more as an inconvenience. It is this change in perception that has allowed AIDS to enter be dragged into the humor arena. (Family Guy used it as far back as 2005 (Warning: SOUND).) People are still dying though and there is no "cure". This is not to say that it is sacrosanct and cannot be used in humor.
The problem here wasn't one of offense. And the problem isn't the humor's churlish and insipid repetitiveness. My problem with the site after thinking about it is the hypocrisy. The writers are claiming to be bad-asses: we're going to throw out shocking words and shock you. When you look deeper into AIDSvertising though you'll note that the authors are all anonymous. Digging further into the "who is" report for the site reveals nothing more than it's use of godaddy, that extra-lame provider. So, like the page-bottom trademark disclaimer, it turns out the bad-asses are actually pussies.
Anonymity when applied to shock humor erases all of the impact. So the use of AIDS in your name and using the word "cunt" in your faux advertisements is reduced from shock to schlock.
As for Thrillist? If this is the best their writers could come up with for a Monday morning, it's obviously not a site for me. I've unsubscribed.
