Beaut.ie rant on Lush Stunt

MissFlitworth

noddyone2 wrote: »

I do believe it. Let's go through this: The animals done nothing wrong, yet they are the ones that suffer, because they have no choice. The criminals did have a choice, they harmed people - why not make them suffer? If millions have a problem with my view, so be it. As for the 'never ending list of reasons', I'll be glad to give my reasoned view on every one. Bottom line: testing on animals is wrong. You cannot say, hand on heart, that it's a good thing.

Hand on heart, for medicines, surgery, surgical implants etc, animal testing is a good thing. Many millions of people today who wouldn't be alive without it.

I don't agree with testing on animals for cosmetic purposes, but human rights trump animal rights every single time. 'they've harmed people, why not make them suffer' is a slippery slope, torture is never, ever right.

SmokeyEyes

This is interesting, I don't feel comfortable with the quote human rights trump animal rights every single time. We have a choice, we can have things explained to us, animals don't want anything to do with it and have to suffer for something they have no understanding of, I can only imagine their fear!

I don't think a word would have been said if a guy had been part of this campaign and not a woman, I'm all for women's rights but this girl clearly conceived the idea and wanted to be a part of it as an intelligent, caring human being.

If people look into this differently I think it's a problem with their own interpretation and to be honest I think it's always women in these campaigns because we spent the vast majority on cosmetics so they're trying to aim it at us

Just to let you know I'm all for women's rights but genuinely don't see this as being an issue

MissFlitworth

SmokeyEyes wrote: »

This is interesting, I don't feel comfortable with the quote human rights trump animal rights every single time.

Possibly I didn't explain that very well, it's mainly in the context of the example given of forcing people in prisons to have testing carried out on them. I don't mean that I feel people should have the right to do whatever the eff they like to an animal but that human rights (as in the right not to be tortured) trump animal rights & that it is a far viler thing to forcibly test anything on a person than on an animal

doctor evil

For those against it on comestic grounds, if your face was scared by fire/acid burns etc would you not want to be able to cover it up with make up if you so wished.

I'm all for animal welfare while animal rights has a very dark side to its supporters.

Babooshka

MissFlitworth wrote: »

it is a far viler thing to forcibly test anything on a person than on an animal

But isn't that the whole point of the girl's campaign...why is it more acceptable to do these things to animals than our own kind...why do we have less compassion for animals, because they can't talk to tell you how much pain and fear they feel?. I am not a strong animal rights activist at all, this whole thing has just made me think hard about all of this. So in that sense I think the campaign worked effectively.

I watched the whole video of the piece and found it painful to watch, disturbing and shocking. But all reactions and thought on art are subjective. I think the comparisons to torture porn and rape are natural enough because it is highligting degradation...animal cruelty and torturing and abusing women are both forms of degradation so I don't see why it would be wrong to draw those comparisons. But the sheer outrage proclaimed by some women on above mentioned site though, makes me wonder is it all a great big distraction from the animal welfare bit...after all, it is for the cosmetics industry and the women who gush over nail varnish and lipstick that some animals are being tested on, maybe the truth hurts so it's easier to get sidetracked and take up a different cause to sidestep that issue. I do not mean all, there just seemed to be a bit of a bandwagon response. I don't know but it was a thought that crossed my mind, some people prefer to keep their ears and eyes shut. Either way, it certainly hit a lot of nerves and made an impact, so can't be a bad thing at all.

KamiKazeKitten

Well done to lush, I think it's a great campaign, and I'm not majorly into animal rights. Shocking and difficult to watch, but a brilliant way of raising awareness.

I don't have a problem with them using a woman for this campaign - after all, women are usually the ones buying makeup, no? They may be pulling at heartstrings with this campaign but at the end of the day they are still a business and trying to appeal to their target demographic. I can understand why people are comparing it to torture and rape, it does after all highlight a type of degradation. When I looked at it, that's not what I saw, I just saw a human in pain and kept wincing in sympathy.


That article is gone now I think - what were beaut saying?

Babooshka

KamiKazeKitten wrote: »

That article is gone now I think - what were beaut saying?

The writer who did the piece on their site drew comparisons with rape imagery and torture porn which was hotly contested by some. From what I can gather the admins had to go into overdrive protecting the site from what they said were extremely abusive posts from extreme animal rights activists, and I'd say they decided enough was enough. They're not a political debate board and I'd say they're more interested in keeping it all about the cosmetics myself, considering that's what they're about, I don't blame them for that. BUT. Sheesh I dunno, whatever happened to freedom of speech.

Morag

I think that the site had some neck to have a go at lush when the majority of products they promote on the site are owned by L'oreal or it's subsidiaries who do more testing on animals for cosmetics then any other company world wide.

noddyone2

MissFlitworth wrote: »

Possibly I didn't explain that very well, it's mainly in the context of the example given of forcing people in prisons to have testing carried out on them. I don't mean that I feel people should have the right to do whatever the eff they like to an animal but that human rights (as in the right not to be tortured) trump animal rights & that it is a far viler thing to forcibly test anything on a person than on an animal

It just seems more vile because it's one of our own species. Would you feel bad because cosmetics were being tested on rapists, child abusers etc? I wouldn't.

PrincessLola

newport2 wrote: »

I agree. They probably do it because far more empathy would be generated for a woman going through this than for a man in the same position.
If a man was used, would this be being discussed now in TLL? Probably not. I doubt it would be in TGC if it was either.

I already said in an earlier post that I wouldn't care if this was done equally to men and women, but it's not. It never is.

While I agree with you that society tends to have a sexist view that women are more vulnerable and helpless, I do not think that is whats going on here in these campaigns.
If it really were about vulnerability then they would use the images of helpless children/very small animals to garner sympathy.
Its about sex, not vulnerability.

Case in point:



She doesn't look too vulnerable to me.
No, I believe its to do with the fact that it is easier to associate women with the abuse of animals because we naturally are used to objectifying women in our society, it just feels more natural to us, it is more powerful.
Images of women being objectified and abused are quite powerful to our psyches. It appeals to something primative in our minds, deep down.


Oh and while PETA don't objectify men like they do women, they still treat men like sh*t. They are disgustingly sexist to men's issues:



HAHA lets all point and sneer at men with erectile disfunction!!
(This is an example of me being repulsed at how men are treated in our society- see I'm not a total crazy feminist!):pac:

newport2

PrincessLola wrote: »

I already said in an earlier post that I wouldn't care if this was done equally to men and women, but it's not. It never is.

While I agree with you that society tends to have a sexist view that women are more vulnerable and helpless, I do not think that is whats going on here in these campaigns.
If it really were about vulnerability then they would use the images of helpless children/very small animals to garner sympathy.
Its about sex, not vulnerability.

Case in point:



She doesn't look too vulnerable to me.
No, I believe its to do with the fact that it is easier to associate women with the abuse of animals because we naturally are used to objectifying women in our society, it just feels more natural to us, it is more powerful.
Images of women being objectified and abused are quite powerful to our psyches. It appeals to something primative in our minds, deep down.


Oh and while PETA don't objectify men like they do women, they still treat men like sh*t. They are disgustingly sexist to men's issues:



HAHA lets all point and sneer at men with erectile disfunction!!
(This is an example of me being repulsed at how men are treated in our society- see I'm not a total crazy feminist!):pac:

I think the Lush campaign was aimed at women regarding women's products, hence it made sense to use a woman for it.

The two other examples you give are just sex sells/attention seekers which, like you say, are objectifying women to get attention. I don't think either of the two women in them are supposed to be looking vulnerable. So I take your point on these, no reason to use women instead of men for them.

doctor evil

More and more men are using cosmetic and cosmetic related products. As a totally OT note it is always interesting the wording used in advertising for the two, and of course, the price!

panda100

Sharrow wrote: »

I think that the site had some neck to have a go at lush when the majority of products they promote on the site are owned by L'oreal or it's subsidiaries who do more testing on animals for cosmetics then any other company world wide.

Not really. The author of the post on beaut was just having a go at the imagery lush chose to use for their 'campaign'.

Personally, I will give Lush the wide Berth in the near future. I am all for animal rights, but sick of our bodies being objectified by animal rights groups.

I have to admit that beaut.ie is a site I never used to go onto that much, but it has been excellent of late. The author of one of my fave blogs, red lemonade, has started writing on Beaut. Her reviews of the Sweet Valley High books are one of the best things I've read in years: http://redlemonade.blogspot.com/2012/04/sweet-valley-high-revisited-power-play.html

Millicent

panda100 wrote: »

Not really. The author of the post on beaut was just having a go at the imagery lush chose to use for their 'campaign'.

Personally, I will give Lush the wide Berth in the near future. I am all for animal rights, but sick of our bodies being objectified by animal rights groups.

I have to admit that beaut.ie is a site I never used to go onto that much, but it has been excellent of late. The author of one of my fave blogs, red lemonade, has started writing on Beaut. Her reviews of the Sweet Valley High books are one of the best things I've read in years: http://redlemonade.blogspot.com/2012/04/sweet-valley-high-revisited-power-play.html

I would thank you twice if I could for that Sweet Valley blog post. :pac: :pac: :pac:

Morag

I will still be supporting Lush was in there this week end to pick up my usually supplies.
I think people are lumping them in with PETA which is wrong imo.

wonderfulname

Funny how it's always women put in these positions, it's fairly similar to the scene you'll find in any low budget horror or gore movie where a female protagonist gets tortured in a mildly sexualised way.

This would have made a far better artistic and political statement had a man been used, it would have freaked people out in the right sort of way, and our concept of male roles could have been subverted in a manner beneficial to the cause, people would have talked in a more productive manner, having said that the whole thing is an idiotic exercise that shouldn't have been completed in the first place. I suppose it's quite obvious the people behind this weren't really considering what they were doing, it's in the same vein as every rash nonsense those that know better come out with, from those that mount pictures outside abortion clinics to every other animal welfare group that has substituted a woman for an animal in campaign imagery.

I'm also kind of annoyed that this completely unoriginal and incredibly poorly executed display is being considered art, it's not, it's just a crass marketing stunt.

mysteries1984

This is interesting, I missed it altogether. I looked on beaut.ie for the link but it's gone now - I'm getting an Error 404 not found message. I'm not a fan of the site at all anyway... I find it a bit too holier-than-thou, personally.

Anyway - I can see where posters are coming from with relation to gender issues, torture porn, etc etc...but as an advertising campaign, it's worked. People are talking about it. That's probably all Lush wanted to begin with, and it's successful.

LizT

wonderfulname wrote: »

Funny how it's always women put in these positions, it's fairly similar to the scene you'll find in any low budget horror or gore movie where a female protagonist gets tortured in a mildly sexualised way.

This would have made a far better artistic and political statement had a man been used, it would have freaked people out in the right sort of way, and our concept of male roles could have been subverted in a manner beneficial to the cause, people would have talked in a more productive manner, having said that the whole thing is an idiotic exercise that shouldn't have been completed in the first place. I suppose it's quite obvious the people behind this weren't really considering what they were doing, it's in the same vein as every rash nonsense those that know better come out with, from those that mount pictures outside abortion clinics to every other animal welfare group that has substituted a woman for an animal in campaign imagery.

I'm also kind of annoyed that this completely unoriginal and incredibly poorly executed display is being considered art, it's not, it's just a crass marketing stunt.

I honestly don't believe it's a marketing stunt; if it is Lush need to fire whoever thought it up. It's to raise awareness about an issue, They must have known it would shock people and possibly turn them off being a customer of Lush.

SmokeyEyes

Beaut said on twitter they were being spammed by Lush employees and it was crashing the site but was that just Lush employees voicing their opinion that differed from the very strong opinion of the poster?

Don't like if it's an opinion piece but they don't like anyone disagreeing and in some cases slag them off for it

mysteries1984

SmokeyEyes wrote: »

Beaut said on twitter they were being spammed by Lush employees and it was crashing the site but was that just Lush employees voicing their opinion that differed from the very strong opinion of the poster?

Don't like if it's an opinion piece but they don't like anyone disagreeing and in some cases slag them off for it

Oh, were they Lush employees in Ireland? And just voicing their opinion? I wish I'd seen it.

+1 to them disliking anyone disagreeing with them...I think it's really unprofessional and put me off reading them. I still can't understand how they're lauded as being so great.

SmokeyEyes

mysteries1984 wrote: »

Oh, were they Lush employees in Ireland? And just voicing their opinion? I wish I'd seen it.

+1 to them disliking anyone disagreeing with them...I think it's really unprofessional and put me off reading them. I still can't understand how they're lauded as being so great.

I'm not sure their tweet said Lush spam took the whole site down, but to me you can't say such sensationalist comments and not expect some strong opinions back, whole piece and handling of it pee'd me right off, not fair to say any comments made by Lush were all 'spam'

wonderfulname

lizt wrote: »

I honestly don't believe it's a marketing stunt; if it is Lush need to fire whoever thought it up. It's to raise awareness about an issue, They must have known it would shock people and possibly turn them off being a customer of Lush.

Even in marketing the issue and the opinion, it's a crass marketing stunt, I would describe it as such had PETA or similar been behind it. And of course you shouldn't be forgetting that the issue presented can be rectified at a consumer level by shopping in Lush.

mysteries1984

SmokeyEyes wrote: »

I'm not sure their tweet said Lush spam took the whole site down, but to me you can't say such sensationalist comments and not expect some strong opinions back, whole piece and handling of it pee'd me right off, not fair to say any comments made by Lush were all 'spam'

Absolutely agree...I remember they also blasted people using the withdrawal method as contraception, calling them stupid and ignorant. For the record I do have my own not-very-glowing opinion of that method, but their handling of it was just bitchy. I only ever go onto the site now to see what commenters are saying on best concealer posts, or others' tutorials.

I'm going to have another look now, see if I can find anything on the stunt on their page. I'd like to see what they said.

Scarinae

I used to work for Lush and I have met the owners several times, so I found this thread quite interesting. I wasn't aware of this current campaign because I haven't been into a Lush shop in ages, and the original post on beaut.ie seems to have been taken down so I am not sure exactly what they said.

Lush does campaigns all the time on various themes, usually to do with animal testing or the environment. They had a campaign while I was working there that focused on shark finning, and for that they had a similar stunt where a girl was strung up on fish hooks in a shop window (the pictures are horrible, but if you want to read about it there is information here). In that case the girl was a performance artist who was a former Lush employee, and the stunt was her idea - they didn't ask the regular sales assistants to volunteer or anything - so I'd imagine that's what happened again here although I'm not 100% sure on that.

Actually, googling the campaign brought me to this article that was posted on the Guardian website on Friday - the Lush campaign manager (who I haven't met) has written it in response to a blog post, would it have been the same one? She wrote:

We have, however, also received criticism for our portrayal of an anonymous victim who suffers at the hands of institutionalised violence. A blog that upset and patronised everyone involved in our campaign – from the performance artist to the 5,000 staff in 800 shops across 49 countries who continue to push the petition – commented: "Women aren't marketing tools. Rape is not a gimmick."

Morag

You cant' see it, they killed the post and you just get a 404 error message which means the page can not be found.

If you search their site you get over 2,000 hits on articles written about Lush products over the years.

And yes the tone of the blog entry and the tweets were very bitchy.



I honestly find it hard to believe that they put about that their site was being 'attacked' by lush employees, I think they just couldn't handle the robust discussion in the comments section.

mysteries1984

Sharrow wrote: »

I honestly find it hard to believe that they put about that their site was being 'attacked' by lush employees, I think they just couldn't handle the robust discussion in the comments section.

Thanks for the image Sharrow, it's fascinating. It puts me more off beaut.ie rather than Lush, personally.

LizT

mysteries1984 wrote: »

Sharrow wrote: »

I honestly find it hard to believe that they put about that their site was being 'attacked' by lush employees, I think they just couldn't handle the robust discussion in the comments section.

Thanks for the image Sharrow, it's fascinating. It puts me more off beaut.ie rather than Lush, personally.

Totally agree. It completely puts me off beaut.ie. I personally think it should have been kept off their twitter feed as they are only retweeting people who agree with them.

Mr Teeny

I saw the original article on beaut (link sent by one of my veggie pals) and I have to say they really dug themselves into a big hole. The article itself was far more sensationalist than the actual campaign imo. Totally agree with earlier posters, campaign would have worked better with a guy but it was still very effective.

Now I had no problem with the author on beaut having an opinion (I don’t agree with her in the slightest but she’s entitled to her own view – even if she did compare one of the force feeding images to “spunk in her mouth”) And they really need to lose the tabloid melodramatic headlines… “lush-in-horrible-disgusting-publicity-stunt-not-big-not-clever” :rolleyes:

Here’s my main problem though, I didn't see any comments from Lush employees in the comments section under the article (maybe they came later but there were plenty of comments when I read). All I saw was a decent debate with differing views and some well put forward arguments. Beaut couldn’t handle the criticism though so they pulled the article! That’s infuriating! If there were spam lush comments, all they had to do was delete them and leave the other comments.

Thank God for places like boards where people can actually voice their opinion. Beaut people if you are reading here take note… lots of different opinions are posted above mine, no need to delete any of them as they are all valid opinions. In future if you post such topical issues, let all sides have their say and keep your toys in your pram.

/rant

Linguo

Oh random was on twitter sneakily in work today and saw this before I left (cause I follow all the beaut girls)! Guess they aren't fans of boards so



I love the site but don't really like it as much lately, this one sided train of thought isn't doing them any favours

ms cloggs

Hi All, I hope you don't mind me butting me but I was involved in the comments on the lush thread and I'm not surprised they pulled the thread. It was nothing to do with spam but rather how bad they made themselves look. One commenter objected to the use of the word rapey being used on twitter and was told by the site it didn't matter if she was a victim of sexual abuse(They've since changed the word from rapey to vile) The writer was slagging the comments coming in with her friends on twitter instead of addressing them on the thread. Her article was a completely unresearched angry rant which really showed her immaturity as a writer. I'm having a bit of a rant here myself I know but I'm really annoyed they pulled the thread and lied about it. I used to love beaut.ie but not anymore, it's not a place to go if you want to express your opinion and your opinion differs from the clique that is beaut.ie.