Aren’t you guys all a bit behind the times? They stopped selling it last year if I recall. Why weren’t you whining about it last February?
Being offended is an internal reaction that is chosen by the offended party.
Just as a f’rinstance, I am a registered voter in the state of California. The interests who manipulate the initiative process in the state of California routinely engage in behavior that suggests that they believe that I, as a California voter, am stupid enough to buy any bill of goods they wish to peddle. If I am offended by that implied accusation of stupidity, it is because I am choosing offendedness (offense) as my response.
From another perspective to illustrate my point, I direct your attention to the following stereotypical exchange of gracious conversational snippets:
SPEAKER A: “No offense intended.”
SPEAKER B: “None taken.”
The above doesn’t even require a real-world (or even hypothetical) example to place it in context. I’m sure we can all recognize the exchange as formulaic. The point illustrated is that offense is something which is TAKEN, not something which is BESTOWED.
Given the above, I have to conclude that I DO, in fact have a right to not be offended.
I also have the responsibility to exercise that right on my own behalf.
Miller: It’s petty, DIY tyranny, and I’ve got zero respect for anyone who engages in an organized boycott. Such people are showing absolute contempt for the principles of individual freedom which are the foundation of this country.
Cheeses Rice. Without intending any disrespect to the mental-health advocacy community, I gotta say, kid, you are nuts. This is libertarian individualism run absolutely frothing mad.
Just how far are you willing to take this interpretation of “DIY tyranny”, anyway? Is it “tyranny” for anybody to attempt to influence commercial decisions in any way except through individual purchase choices? What if the spouse of the company’s CEO says “You know, honey, I think that bear’s kind of disgusting, I don’t think you folks ought to be marketing it”? Is that person “showing absolute contempt for the principles of individual freedom”?
Miller: The end result is the same: a vocal minority gets to impose their ideas of what’s right on the rest of us, without our consent.
Oh, it’s much worse than that, Miller! You know, companies often make marketing decisions on the basis of studying focus groups! A small group of people, completely unbeknownst to you and entirely without your consent, is able to express any opinion they want about a proposed product, and significantly influence the company’s decision about marketing it! Talk about imposing the ideas of a vocal minority on the rest of us without our consent!! Oh, the horror, the bleak black-leather fascism of it all! [cue gloomy music…]
Come off it. A company’s marketing choices are not sacrosanct shrines to “freedom”. They are commercial decisions about profitability. It is no more “bullying” for a protest or a boycott to use negative publicity to convince a company to stop selling a product voluntarily than it is for a company to use negative publicity to force a competitor’s product off the market.
And yet, heart wrenching as that anecdote was, I didn’t see any mention of strait jackets or teddybears. Nor, in the OP, did I see any mention of “let’s mock the bipolar”.
The teddy bear * might * be considered in poor taste, but it’s an * enormous * stretch to say that it perpetuates ignorance and antagonism towards the mentally ill.
No, it isn’t. I fielded tons of calls from outraged consumers who wanted us to know about this item and how it perpetuated stigma.
Further to what gobear said, it is a stretch to deny that it perpetuates the stigma. In fact, it capitalizes on that stigma.
You call me a libertarian again, and I’m going to get really angry.
No, it’s not. I’m talking about organized boycotts, here.
Focus groups are one of the main reasons that mainstream media is almost entirely devoid of anything interesting, creative, or original. I’ve got about as much contempt for them as I do for you, but in this case, at least the companies using them have sought them out on their own initiative, not been bushwhacked by a bunch of loud-mouths in desperate need of a hobby.
I’m not talking about the company’s freedom to market, I’m talking about my freedom to consume. Organized boycotts are grassroots censorship. They are attempts to dictate what other people are allowed to read/watch/hear/think about. While mercifully less effective than government censorship, they are no less disgusting, and the people responsible for them no less repulsive.
huff everyone is ignoring the example I provided. It’s much more looney.
::goes away to pout::
I suffer from depression and anxiety and I would LOVE to own that bear. I too abhor the stigma of mental illness in our society. That being said, I still like the bear and think that sometimes laughter helps us get over these things.
Wow, I thought I was being wooshed until I read your follow-up post.
Do your outraged consumers (were they, by the way, mentally ill themselves or were they mentally healthy and just assuming outrage on behalf of others?) demand the banning of the Pasty Cline song “Crazy”? What about Madonna’s early semi-hit “Crazy for You” or “I’m Going Bananas” from Dick Tracy? Or any of the thousands of other examples of commercial exploitation of the commonly accepted trope of “crazy” as a synonym for “in love”?
Now if they want to get outraged about a bear, let them get outraged at Hallmark’s homophobic Kiss-Kiss Bears.
Otto, I work for NAMI and I help people who deal with schizophrenia, bipolar illness, OCD, chronic depression, and other serious mental illnesses. Most of the people at my nonprofit either are consumers themselves (“consumers” being the nice word for mentally ill people) or have mentally ill family members. Dude, stigma hurts people’s employment, their housing, their relations with healthy people. Do you have any idea about the real pain that people have to endure because people like you laugh at their illness? Do you know how hard it is to keep a job, let alone get hired, because people like you think that the mentally ill don’t deserve the same rights or the same medical care as you?
Bigotry sucks. All bigotry. Yeah, I hate the homophobic “kiss kiss bears” too, but unlike you I can empathize with the struggles of other people as well.
Gobear , I am Biploar Type I and I know first hand the type of stigma that people with mental illness have to endure. I applaud you and your non-profit center for the work you do. It is certainly welcome and drastically needed.
However, I don’t get offended by the bear. I have been in a few mental hospitals and have never seen a straight jacket. To me, it is just a comical device to express an idea. It would be the same thing if they made a bear with an old-style ball and chain and the families of prisioners got offended. I wouldn’t call it a positive thing for the mentally ill but I think it is just a cute bear. Others can protest all they want but I think that there are more productive things to spend time on in the fight the rights of the mentally ill.
Fuck you, you self-righteous son of a bitch. I’ll see your “answers phones for NAMI” and raise you three years in a relationship with a man with schizo-affective disorder, diagnosed depression (but IMHO undiagnosed bipolar), anxiety disorder and social phobia. You deal with the mentally ill 9-5 five days a week? I dealt with the mentally ill 24/7 for three years, through the loss of jobs, the inability to get him on my insurance because we weren’t legally married, the battles with the feds and the state to get his medical bills paid, the depression and the multiple runs to the emergency room and the locked psych ward (not to mention getting to be the one who gets to call his mother) following suicide attempts. I’ve been on the front lines, asshole. You have nothing to say to me about dealing with the mentally ill.
Oh, I can only hope that one day I’ll be as evolved as you. Be sure to send me your garment so I may touch the hem of it.
**Hey, listen here you self-righteous cockgobbler, I know both first and second hand about the trials and tribulations of those suffering from mental illness, and it’s root causation, so fuck you, fuck your assumptions AND fuck your igorance of my situation and experiences. And what the fuck is with the “people like you” comment? That’s a GIAGANTIC assumption on your part, pal. I haven’t marginalized or treated ANYONE as inferior because of an illness they cannot control having.
Frankly, I think mocking just about anything is socially acceptable, just because it offends YOUR personal sensibilities, does NOT mean everyone must subscribe to your way of thinking. **
**Cue the violins already :rolleyes:. Give it a rest ya fuckin’ hand-wringer, there are a LOT of things that make people outcasts in this society; fat people, gays, blacks, women, cripples (ok, disabled) are all technically victims of a stigma, of some kind, whining about it only vaguely addresses the symptoms, and does nothing for the disease.
The outrage you and the ‘industry’ folks are manufacturing for this fucking teddy bear is doing nothing more than making sure the mentally ill remain victims of the stigma you rail against. **
Here we are again with the ‘people like you’ bigotry. YOU KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT ME, you jackass. Fuck. When come back, bring argument, asscake.
Piss off.
Actually, Buttonjockey308, your posts and your attitude tell me all I need to know about you.
And since Otto believes that because he dated a mentally ill guy that no complaints about stigma need be addressed, I’ll just back away.
And just to be clear, I’m only posting my opinions, and am speaking only for myself, not for NAMI, consumers, or any other group.
Might I just suggest that there may be better avenues to deal with the prejudices faced by the mentally challenged then getting all bothered by a teddy bear.
I really want to understand where people are coming from about this whole thing, but it’s a teddy bear.
Of all the examples of prejudice against the mentally ill, a fight was picked over a teddy bear. The best example they could find was a teddy bear in a straight jacket?
It’s a play on words. It’s a cheesey little joke. It’s a friggin cutesy teddy bear!
How in the crap can people get so lathered up over a teddy bear? If you want to get mad about it, get mad about the price. $70 bucks for a teddy bear with a lame joke costume. Now that’s offensive.
I don’t understand the point of any of this. Does this mean that Gobear’s opinion has no value because he only works with the mentally ill while you were partners with someone affected? Well, I will raise you. As I explained earlier, I have it myself. I guess that means that you now have absolutley nothing to say about the mentally ill in this thread. I value Gobear’s opinion and not yours from what I have read so that settles that as long as we are having a ranking contest.
I really wanted to use my 10,000th post for something else.
I have no interest in playing “Can You Top This”? I only mentioned my work (which is not “answering phones”) because this issue has been brought up by consumers themselves who were upset by the bear. I’d be pissed as a gay man if the company had produced a bear that perpetuated a derogatory stereotype of gay people.
What I think the OP misunderstands is that bigotry isn’t perpetuated by burning crosses or overt acts as much as it is by the small, “harmless” things that we let slide, like using “cockgobbler” as a term of insult, as if being gay were a bad thing.
I understand we need a sense or proportion and that we can’t be the Sensitivity Police, and I certainly don’t pretend to speak for other people, but are supposed to ignore it when people say that they are offended by a stereotype being sold as a joke?
You’re not usually this stupid. Did I say that the stigma of mental illness doesn’t need to be addressed? No. Did I say that because I was in a long-term committed relationship with a severely mentally ill man (and fuck you sideways with a rusty saw blade for reducing it to “dating,” fucker, way to devalue the relationship just like a fundamentalist prick) that I am Lord God King of What Offends The Mentally Ill? No.
What I said, you martyr-complexed jackass, is that your stupid, ill-informed, condescending, fucked up in general assumptions about me and my background and experience with the mentally ill and the asshole remarks you made as a result of your pig-ignorance were flat wrong, and that your claim of some special expertise in the matter because you answer phones for a mental health organization (that I, by the way, was involved with long before you started drawing your paycheck) is a load of shit.
You come barreling in here as, from what I know, a mentally healthy person, declaring that the OP is the sort of person who “targets” the mentally ill, and follow that up with the ludicrous idea that because I don’t fall in line with what your idea of “support” is that I have no empathy for the mentally ill. Then when that shithead attitude gets exploded, you belittle and dismiss my experiences as the long-term partner of a mentally ill man. I hope you treat the partners of your consumers better than that.
No, it means that his rickety ladder to the moral high ground starts losing rungs when he pretends like disagreeing with him on this issue means that those who disagree are bad people who “target” the mentally ill and are incapable of empathy. It means that my experiences on the ground dealing with a loved one with multiple mental illnesses every day for three years count for at least as much as whatever training he got from NAMI to answer their phones and that he needs to go fuck himself for being a dismissive little prick.