Skip to main content

Is this Insulting?

I couldn't answer my own question about one of the Christmas advertisements FedEx recently ran here in North America.  Rather than describe it, I'll let you watch this 15 second ad by clicking here.

Nana keeps knitting to fill a box from FedEx because she only has to pay One-Rate.  During the video you see she's already made a toaster, a refrigerator, a dog, and a Christmas tree cozy and at the very end, even a cozy for her grandchild.  She's a knitting machine!

Question is should any knitters be insulted by this advertisement?  It does so play to the stereotypical knitting type.  Nana is sitting in her chair in a home that hasn't been redecorated in years, surrounded by yarn and photos from the past.

Nana's home from the video


Her daughter in standing in an active, modern household where her husband is finishing the decorating of the Xmas tree under its own cozy with all the additional cozies in sight, except the child.

Daughter's home

The typical stereotypes about the average knitter are palpable:
  • Nana's older
  • Nana's thrifty
  • So of course she knits
I thought I'd do some research to see what motivated this ad and I got my answer.  All the knitted items for the ad were prepared by Darn Good Yarn, a LYS + in Sebec, Maine.   Nicole Snow, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, now yarn shop owner, imports yarn fiber that has been recycled from waste silk in India and Nepal and then distributes product in both the wholesale and retail markets. Click here to get the full story about the good work this small business owner is doing to help other women in the world. In 2013 FedEx announced that Darn Good Yarn was the grand prize winner of the inaugural FedEx Small Business Grant Competition and the recipient of a $25,000 grant.  

All of this helps me feel better about the stereotypes in the ad. To think FedEx is in a small way financially supporting this entrepreneur helps explain the subject and why it was selected.  Thus, I'm choosing to not be insulted and laugh along with everyone else.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
11 comments
Read more

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...
1 comment
Read more

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...
10 comments
Read more