Gillette Goes For Woke

An Illustration in SJW Convergence

By now you’ve probably seen the new woke Gillette commercial, and heard that people are of two minds on it. Supposedly they either think it’s “necessary” and “empowering” or they’re “outraged.”

I believe it’s neither necessary nor empowering, but I’m not outraged. In fact, most of the people who don’t like the ad haven’t seemed outraged to me. Are some people so? Sure. But you can do a lot to disregard criticism by painting it all as outrage. Personally, I’m fascinated. I think it’s a good illustration of the SJW Convergence that is taking place in many corporations. This ideology has a tendency, once it’s taken root in a company (or organization, or church, or group) to subvert the original purpose of the company to the ideology itself, making it the priority and the lens through which everything is viewed. That’s convergence.

On the one hand, I find the Gillette ad unintentionally hilarious, like I do most woke ads. There’s just something really funny about getting a social justice lecture from a razor company. Their attempt at earnestness is comical. It lends itself to parody so easily, in fact it’s so close to parody, that I couldn’t help laughing out loud. Reading the comments on YouTube (which…