I am frequently accused, mostly by people who think they are making fun of political correctness by enforcing it, of not being the most PC person around.
And I would hardly consider "National Geographic" a particularly culturally sensitive organization. After all, it brings to mind either British Explorer types yakking to drawing rooms about their adventures in exotic places, or young people of generations before mine who used its pictures of naked people for well, what my generation and generations forward use the internet for.
So yeah, not particularly culturally sensitive even by reputation.
But despite my low standards for the place, even non-PC me is genuinely appalled by the Shrink your own head game now available on National Geographic's website.
It's exactly what it sounds like. Upload a picture of yourself and they will make your face into a shrunken head. Then you can put it on Facebook.
That might be one of tackiest, least culturally sensitive things I've ever seen on the internet. And that's saying a hell of a lot.
CC
5 comments:
Thanks for the shrunken heads up CC.
The Emerson Avenger aka The Emerson Head Shrinker could have a bit of fun with this. . . :-)
I dare say that National Geographic does seem to be getting rather tabloidish in recent years. Not so much the magazine itself but some of the TV programming etc.
Sounds like one of those old-person-trying-to-be-hip moves that winds up just being embarrassing or, in this case, worse.
~DSD, who is an old person who is unlikely to be hip very soon.
Yeah, there is a definite pathetic feel to the whole thing. I didn't even learn about it from a friend posting it to facebook. They had a banner ad on Salon.
CC
I'm guessing they're trying to draw that old target market of middle and high schoolers ...?
Well, I thought that image of the hanging head was pretty gratuitous, but it did get me to read two of the three associated articles (the head shrinking process and the roles of Shamans in the Shuar culture.)
I could possibly make an argument for why this is de-mystifying and de-grossifying the head shrinking culture, but it would be tough to sell ... I mean, clearly there is more to these people than that their ancestors shrunk heads? Right, National Geographic?
Some people seem to think that the only/best way to get kids interested in science is to focus on the gross and disgusting. Slime, bodily functions, freak shows.
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