what what in the butt?
ok, why have ads for some weird Japanese bidet/toilet combo thingy taken over the internet? seriously. I have seen these on like five sites over the past few days including Salon and Gawker (it's there right now! go look quickly!) and maybe the fucking New York Times.
This product is called Washlet and it is made by a company called Toto that is apparently Japan's largest manufacturer of flush toilets. I once read about a popular Japanese toilet that makes some weird noise or plays music while you're using it so that no one can hear you pee (I can actually see the appeal of that one), so I guess it's not surprising that there's also one that automatically sprays hot water and blows hot air on your ass while you're one it...maybe that would be nice, I don't know. It probably would be!
But this does not answer the question of what is up with their ads! Every time I go to a website that features them and I see this fancy flash thingy with alternating butts with smiley faces drawn on them I get really confused and weirded out. At first I thought they were ads for one of those Dove Real Beauty products, because at first I thought that all of the butts were of that genre of women who are not fat but not exactly thin either, who qualify as "curvy" but definitely not as "toned," and thus (apparently) are as "real" - as in look, real women,not models!! Then I realized it wasn't Dove - does Dove show actual buttocks in their ads? Isn't that, like, illegal? wtf happened to censorship! - but rather was this Japanese butt-cleaning toilet, and then I wondered: why do only women - and, moreover, only "real" women - need this product? Why do only women with "curvy" butts and thighs need extra ass-washing? and need to be told that "Clean is Happy"? (thus, implicitly, that they, as people who do not have this product but should, are probably UNclean and UNhappy, even if they don't know it yet.)
Then I realized that one one of the most commonly featured butts on the ads is in fact meant to be read as that of a man, specifically a black man, and - interestingly! - this is a black man who is toned and muscular and slender. Precisely what the (white) women are NOT. So the target audience here is white women with less-than-ideal (under our current gender-and-body regimes, etc, obvs) bodies (and also with extremely long hair) and black men with hyperideal bodies (and with no hair, like no head hair and also no body hair)?
Like, if you go with the implied narratives here, 30-to-40-something (probably suburban) mothers who don't work out a lot and thus feel a little - or more than a little - bad about their butts and also feel exhausted and put-upon all the time and also think a lot about cleaning, and will be excited about a product that claims that "clean is happy" and promises, also, luxury and relaxation and insinuates the total disappearance of body hair? And then 20-to-30-something (probably urban) guys who do work out a lot and probably feel really good but also always slightly anxious about their butts, and also will be excited by a product that claims that "clean is happy" and promises luxury and relaxation and insinuates the total disappearance of body hair? That is, the gays (and/or, to employ an outdated and annoying term, "metrosexuals").
SO, somewhat degraded heterosexual women - and I mean women, heavily other- and self-identified as such - and the gays. I suppose this makes sense because these are the groups that, for one reason or another, are most likely to be most concerned about their butts. And perhaps the cleanliness thereof. (I dunno, do women like this have a lot of anal sex? Do they want to have more anal sex? Do their husbands want anal sex but they are embarrassed because they are worried about their asses being unclean? I guess this is not unlikely.)
Still, why only white women and black gays? (I know if you go to the site there are more kinds of people featured but these are the most prevalent ones in the ads, I swear.) And I don't think that this kind of mash-up thing of these two target audiences is all that great an idea, because the gays are going to be like, "eww, fat ladies" and the women are going to be like "ooh, a hot gay, now I feel even worse about myself/my husband's life/butt/body" (but not in a way that's going to make them want the thing, because it kills the whole identification/validation vibe).
Also, why are they taking over the internets and would they please go away!?
This product is called Washlet and it is made by a company called Toto that is apparently Japan's largest manufacturer of flush toilets. I once read about a popular Japanese toilet that makes some weird noise or plays music while you're using it so that no one can hear you pee (I can actually see the appeal of that one), so I guess it's not surprising that there's also one that automatically sprays hot water and blows hot air on your ass while you're one it...maybe that would be nice, I don't know. It probably would be!
But this does not answer the question of what is up with their ads! Every time I go to a website that features them and I see this fancy flash thingy with alternating butts with smiley faces drawn on them I get really confused and weirded out. At first I thought they were ads for one of those Dove Real Beauty products, because at first I thought that all of the butts were of that genre of women who are not fat but not exactly thin either, who qualify as "curvy" but definitely not as "toned," and thus (apparently) are as "real" - as in look, real women,not models!! Then I realized it wasn't Dove - does Dove show actual buttocks in their ads? Isn't that, like, illegal? wtf happened to censorship! - but rather was this Japanese butt-cleaning toilet, and then I wondered: why do only women - and, moreover, only "real" women - need this product? Why do only women with "curvy" butts and thighs need extra ass-washing? and need to be told that "Clean is Happy"? (thus, implicitly, that they, as people who do not have this product but should, are probably UNclean and UNhappy, even if they don't know it yet.)
Then I realized that one one of the most commonly featured butts on the ads is in fact meant to be read as that of a man, specifically a black man, and - interestingly! - this is a black man who is toned and muscular and slender. Precisely what the (white) women are NOT. So the target audience here is white women with less-than-ideal (under our current gender-and-body regimes, etc, obvs) bodies (and also with extremely long hair) and black men with hyperideal bodies (and with no hair, like no head hair and also no body hair)?
Like, if you go with the implied narratives here, 30-to-40-something (probably suburban) mothers who don't work out a lot and thus feel a little - or more than a little - bad about their butts and also feel exhausted and put-upon all the time and also think a lot about cleaning, and will be excited about a product that claims that "clean is happy" and promises, also, luxury and relaxation and insinuates the total disappearance of body hair? And then 20-to-30-something (probably urban) guys who do work out a lot and probably feel really good but also always slightly anxious about their butts, and also will be excited by a product that claims that "clean is happy" and promises luxury and relaxation and insinuates the total disappearance of body hair? That is, the gays (and/or, to employ an outdated and annoying term, "metrosexuals").
SO, somewhat degraded heterosexual women - and I mean women, heavily other- and self-identified as such - and the gays. I suppose this makes sense because these are the groups that, for one reason or another, are most likely to be most concerned about their butts. And perhaps the cleanliness thereof. (I dunno, do women like this have a lot of anal sex? Do they want to have more anal sex? Do their husbands want anal sex but they are embarrassed because they are worried about their asses being unclean? I guess this is not unlikely.)
Still, why only white women and black gays? (I know if you go to the site there are more kinds of people featured but these are the most prevalent ones in the ads, I swear.) And I don't think that this kind of mash-up thing of these two target audiences is all that great an idea, because the gays are going to be like, "eww, fat ladies" and the women are going to be like "ooh, a hot gay, now I feel even worse about myself/my husband's life/butt/body" (but not in a way that's going to make them want the thing, because it kills the whole identification/validation vibe).
Also, why are they taking over the internets and would they please go away!?