Alan Gutierrez

Update: For my New Orleans readers, this makes no sense. Here is some context. I’m writing about a woman who markets computer software in San Francisco, who has been harping about something she calls the Pinko Marketing Manifesto. She uses Communist imagry and rhetoric to draw attention to her marketing efforts. When someone tries to explain that Communism really was bad, she says that they are ignorant and attributes their ignorance to American education. It would not be worth mentioning, except that she’s getting a lot of support from people in software industry.

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A few friends have heard me tell the story of Tara Hunt’s Marx Is Back post.

This article stunned me.

The post is highlighted with an image of Castro, Stalin, and Mao at a party, along with Lenin and Marx. They are having a party. The text of the post has some rambling about Marxism and a quote from the Communist Manifesto.

Keven Marks in the comments of Marx is back…get used to it questions the decency.

Tara, citing the Communist Manifesto’s rhetoric is one thing, using several of the biggest mass murderers in the history of humanity as graphical elements is quite another.

I wonder why you left Hitler out of the graphic?

Tara then explains that.

A. I didn’t create the graphic, it’s from a very popular Threadless shirt. (which is beside the point)

And then with one of the most stunning own goals I’ve seen in a long time she follows up with.

B. Because Hitler wasn’t a socialist.

This, combined with the rambling lead in where she patronizes her overly sensitive American readers, offended me to no end. She explained that Canadians are more open minded and better educated, thus they are not threatened by Socialism.

History is interpreted through heavily influenced lenses, Kevin. Many countries believe that the US has been run by murderers as well. I don’t think there is a single leader in history that doesn’t have blood on their hands.

For Tara Hunt, Jimmy Carter and Joseph Stalin are six of one, a half dozen the other.

20 million. Start with the Holomodor.

Party Girl

Tara Hunt has every reason to be dismissive. These symbols she’s employing are evocative. They are building her brand.

She has no idea why they are so evocative. They are evocative do to a century of state sponsored murder and torture.

Her dismissal of the complaints of her readers is entirely self-serving.

Why Pinko? She asks herself. Say what she will. I say link bait.

False Diversity

To me it seemed that the marketing bloggers had echoed themselves into the realm of the untouchable. Evelyn Rodriguez linked and chimed in to support Tara in her Marx Is Back post. Doc Searls raved about this new manifesto. I stopped reading blogs for a while.

Do I really want to associate myself with these people?

For all her condemnations of oversenstive Americans, I’d be afraid to offend people that I communicate with in Eastern Europe or on the Pacific Rim.

Heaven help me in any attempt to work with the Vietnamese community in New Orleans, where they to find me on my blog, waving a hammer and sickle.

Communist rhetoric as salon chatter, symbols of the Stalinist state as eye candy, choosing heros among the great murderers of humanity as if they were nothing more than the bad boys of pro-Wrestling; these are exemplary of the sort of narcissism that Tara assigns to her American readers.

Is this a product of false diversity?

For too long, the blogosphere has been dominated by male, college educated, wealthy, white, San Franciscan, Californian, technical industry voices. Now that we have the opportunity to hear from a female, college educated, wealthy, white, San Franciscan, Californian, technical industry voice, we show deferrence to account for our past discrimination.

Rising to defend the appropriate of Soviet propaganda for the creation of a “Global Microbrand.”

The web marketing worldview is more insular than ever.

Fahrfergnugen

Again, I say link bait.

No Google Juice for Tara.

Alas, after a through fisking, now she’s recanted. She has responded to her market. (Ugh!)

Great. Let her off the hook.

Tara is back. I’ll get used to it.

But, did she get it? What about the rest of the bandwagon?

Her apology is timed with her employer’s product launch. What has worked is no longer working. It is obvious that she’s ridden Mao’s coattails as far as they will take her.

In the comments of Tara’s mia culpa, Mark Coller says

It’s the whole mental gatekeepers thing. You say ‘pinko’ or ‘commie’ marketing, and you activate the ‘I don’t like those things, so I’m not going to like what you say next’ mental gate.

True. Decimating a population tends to slam a gate shut for generations.

In high-school I drove a Fahrfergnugen era Volkwagen. I liked my Volkswagen. I’d had it not more than a week when I had a parking lot conversation that, with variations, I would find myself in repeatedly.

“The CRX is quick, but it still feels like a Honda. Hondas are driving appliances. Volkswagens were designed for the Autobahn.”

“Yeah, I wanted a Volkswagen, too, but my dad would never let any of us own one.”

“Why not?”

“He says it’s Hitler’s car. Hitler’s promise the the German people.”

“That was the Beetle.”

“He doesn’t care.”

That is the power of branding.