The Calvin Klein ads on the site are NSFW, misogynist, and just plain creepy.
Can we not find a better product to advertise on BB? Thanks.
Don’t blame BoingBoing. It’s just Google serving up the desires of your heart you would prefer to deny.
7 Likes
Since I usually do a good job of mentally filter out that kind of thing and look at stuff more here than the main site these days… I went to specifically look. Woo that’s pretty umm yeah. Artsier than say an ad for AXE but very much wear this and get laid. My inner 13year old does like the ending pan of the skyscraper and then the hole to the lower level highway/park or whatever it was.
Not related to the ads on BB, necessarily, but these sorts of ad are becoming more common, now. American Apparel’s ads tend to be pretty sexist, too. And Axe, as @TobinL points out. But I generally filter out ads, too. But i’m not crazy about this sort of advertising, in general.
Oh man every American Apparel ad I have actually noticed noticed has ranged from well that’s a bit inappropriate to eww no this looks too pervy/creepy.
1 Like
Yeah, no, “passing the buck” isn’t gonna cut it. It’s their domain, if something appears on their site, they tacitly approved it.
It’s hypocritical to see Boing Boing post stuff about the Bechdel test and Gamergate and then allow stuff like that on their domain.
And again: gross.
Maybe Boingboing uses a Chinese wall
Adblock.
I see nothing of what you speak.
3 Likes
That may be true in theory, but in practice it’s simply impossible for a smaller website to control what ads are served up. The companies that use Google to disseminate their ads change their ads every day, and Google serves them up as they are. There simply isn’t any mechanism for a site’s editor to go through ahead of time and decide which ads will display.
A huge website like the Times may have a dedicated person selling ad space to specific companies, but that’s extremely rare. (Indeed, even the Times uses a service.)
Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is, until you or someone else creates a competing ad service that can keep the sites that depend on them in business while allowing fine-grained editorial control over the ads themselves.
Until then, you could just install AdBlock.
1 Like
Screw ads. They only get on the way of things and mostly only deal in some pretty lousy tropes.
And if you’re worried about BB losing a few cents of revenue, buy a T-shirt. 
A “smaller website”? Boing Boing gets like 8 million uniques a month. They’ve got plenty of clout to complain to Google.
And Google should have the capabiltiy to at least separate out NSFW from SFW ads; that’s bare minimum content-based filtering for an ad company.
Also “just the way it is”: me complaining about it here on the discussion board.
And just to be clear, I’m at work and can’t install Adblock, but that’s not the point, the point here is Boing Boing runs plenty of anti-sexist, anti-misogynistic posts here on their site and they’re completely undoing it by taking money from people who are, in fact, sexist and misogynistic.
Heck, if they just ran a public apology saying “We can’t control our ads, but we hate Calvin Klein,” I’d be happy.
3 Likes
…I’m not gonna like, that’s reinforcing negative mentality right there.
This topic was automatically closed after 696 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
