Volkswagen apologizes for racist ad

[reallySorryAboutThat]

@someguy

 ER
NE
G

holy shit

[dave_t]

Approves

[anon75430791]

No, but I seriously think that I can write funny things on the internet that people click ‘Like’ for.

[gracchus]

@reallySorryAboutThat

Wait, did you just assume that person was a Nazi descendant?

If by “assume” you mean “make a joke about” (based on his downplaying the racism of the ad and whinging about our “moral outrage”), then yes.

I mean, he brought up Argentina. How could I resist that straight line?

[orenwolf]

@reallySorryAboutThat

You seriously think there’s any cultural continuity after 75 years, a few years of which the thing was actually run by the British occupation army?

I think a corporation that has a sordid past around bigotry has a responsibility to never forget and hold itself to the highest standards specifically around bigotry, yes. Especially when the corporations nation has done such a great job of enshrining that docterine into all aspects of society there.

[Tamsin_Bailey]

@toodlelew

Petit Colon

My bad, I was mistaking that for the lower intestine and just got muddled that you might have been talking shit there.

[the_borderer]

@reallySorryAboutThat

a few years of which the thing was actually run by the British occupation army?

We were too lenient with the Nazis after WW2. I wouldn’t want to go full tankie, but lets just say that Spandau Prison should have had more inmates than it did.

[LutherBlisset]

You guys know that I am a bit partial about German history, right? Like in “why did it take so long for the allied forces realise they must bomb this shitshow to hell” partial?

I’m glad some people notice that the Nazi-founded car maker actually called this ad racist. I have to point out that it needed, and I quote from German media, a shitstorm to make it happen, and their first non-apology is documented. And I’d be even more glad if all people responsible (yeah, I serious also mean you, Stackmann) would loose their job and not work in “the industry” of marketing again. Ever. Fuck, the n-word really made this more than obvious, how could they not spot this? What oversight is that, are you out of your tiny minds?
I also agree that Columbus was a racist, and his so-called discovery lead to genocide on a scale not before and not after reached.

But can we still agree, as an aside, but still, that Rob’s translation is incorrect? Since petit is French, and “colon” can be used in French as abbreviation of “colonist”, the confusion is perfect. It’s still an error, in this case. Little colonist has as much to do with Little Columbus as with large intestine. Same shit in result, shit stays stinking and Nazi braun, though. Kleiner Grimmdarm as a technically correct translation would even make the racism more vile, if that is even possible. That’s actually where I would like to stick my boot in at the “creatives” who created this.

Hey, don’t judge me too harsh for criticizing @beschizza’s phrasing I’m still training for the Pedant’s Pendant.

Oh, by the way, VW: own this, and get your shit together right now. Also, stop building cars and so something worthwhile. You could have started decades ago. Instead, you fucked up so badly I can’t even think of an attribute.

ETA: shit, @Tamsin_Bailey, you beat me to it.

[zuludaddy]

[Brainspore]

@someguy

Everybody welcome? Really? I did not realize that the KKK was so inclusive.

The top right of the flyer promises “Races, Contests” but I think we know the contest was rigged for one race in particular.

[jmv]

This is such an absurd premise for an ad to begin with, and then add multiple layers of racism, patronizing, condescending, unhumorous jingoism, and tada!
Even if you remove the racism, and made it a story about some pedestrian getting too close to your car…it’s not even remotely funny. Because EVERYONE is a potential customer, why bother to alienate any future customers, even if they were kids in diapers.
Now if this had been an ad with the car owner and a pigeon, where the pigeon wants to sit on the car, but the owner has tickets to the opera, tries to shoo the bird away, fails, then gives the bird the opera tickets, and drives a mountain road instead, that would be funny.
But any car ad, no matter how well made or poorly executed, is first a product of the ad agency that produced it. The client (VW) is negligent for allowing this to move forward, but the ad agency (if there was one) shouldn’t be shielded from this criticism either.

Update: I suspect this wasn’t produced by an official ad agency, but rather by an individual VW employee (or contractor) who had too much social media power and some limited CGI abilities. Thus, I can see how this post could have slipped through the approval process.

[orenwolf]

@LutherBlisset

But can we still agree, as an aside, but still, that Rob’s translation is incorrect?

Yes, I think it’s pretty low on the overall shitshow scale though, as you point out.

I met a lot of German expats in my time at Wikimedia (Germans love Wikipedia, like, probably more than the US does), and the one takeaway I had on this subject from them was that Germany has done a really, really good job at self-reflection and owning their mistakes. In that light, the fact that VW the mother company freaked the hell out when this finally got big enough is positive, but the fact that this even managed to exist at all is a whole other level of big, loud warning klaxon that things are not ok within.

[William_Holden]

This is just sad. Remember that VW is also: Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Volkswagen

[Doctor_Faustus]

@TheChineseWatch

I wonder if this references something that would at least make sense to the Chermansz?

It doesn’t to this German

[Doctor_Faustus]

@Pensketch

Honestly, after dieselgate I’m more than a little disappointed they are still a thing, out there, fucking about. I wish they’d been parted out.

You have no idea how large and profitable a corporation VW is.

From a German perspective this would be like seeing Boeing go under, or maybe Google. Not to mention that large amounts of the company are owned by one of the German states.

[gracchus]

@orenwolf

I met a lot of German expats in my time at Wikimedia (Germans love Wikipedia, like, probably more than the US does), and the one takeaway I had on this subject from them was that Germany has done a really, really good job at self-reflection and owning their mistakes.

I’ve had the same general impression from the Germans I know. However, some of them made me aware of the … nostalgia, shall we say, for the anti-Semitism and racism of the Third Reich in certain circles of West Germany’s business elites after the war. The casual bigotry is not pervasive in the corporate culture anymore, but it does bubble up now and then.

Really, though, I suspect this kind of thing is more about horrors of the 1930s and 1940s dying out of living memory not only in Germany but around the world. It’s just more shocking to see right-wing populism and open bigotry returning there given all the successful work put into accepting responsibility as a nation.

[docosc]

And “naturralization after parade?” That seems to go against type, doesnt it?

[Michael_R_Smith]

And Skoda.

(I own a 2018 VW caddy van by the way. I decided not to replace my toyota van with a new toyota when they ran an advertisement advocating violence against bicycle riders.)

[the_borderer]

SEAT and Ducati too.

[Pensketch]

I see your point, but I don’t believe in “too big to fail” and still feel if they can’t be reigned in, they should be torn to multiple competing pieces. I feel the same way about any behemoth corporation that feels it’s actions are above the law and common decency. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a law maker.