In before I start seeing people bitching about rainbow capitalism MY favorite rainbow capitalism story is about Subaru. Yes the Japanese car company.
In the nineties, they were struggling. They were competing with a dozen other companies targeting the main demographic at the time: white men ages 18-35, especially after a failed luxury car launch with a new ad agency. “What we need is to focus on niche demographics,” they decided, and then focused on people who enjoyed the outdoors. The Subaru was excellent at driving on dirt roads that many other vehicles couldn’t at the time, so it was perfect for all those off-road campers; they started making all-wheel drive standard in all their cars to help with that. And the people who wanted cars to go do outdoor stuff? Lesbians.
Okay. Of course it wasn’t only lesbians buying Subarus. They’re on the list with educators, health-care professionals, and IT people. But the point is, this Japanese car company interviewed this strange demographic (single, female head of household) and realized one important factor: They were lesbians. They liked to be able to use the cars to go do outdoorsy stuff, and they liked that they could use the cars to haul stuff rather than a big truck or van. Subaru had a choice to make then. They had four other demographics they could market to, after all–the educators, the health-care professionals, IT professionals, and straight outdoorsy couples. Their company didn’t hinge on this one “problematic” demographic.
And they decided “fuck it,” and marketed to lesbians anyway. This included offering benefits to American gay and lesbian employees for their domestic partners, so it didn’t look like a cash grab. (This was not a problem. They already offered those in Canada.)
Yes, there was some backlash. They got letters from a grassroots group accusing them of promoting homosexuality, and every letter said they’d no longer be buying from Subaru. “You didn’t buy from us before, either,” Subaru realized, and ignored them. It helped that the team really cared about the plan, and that they had many straight allies to back them up. There was also some initial backlash when Subaru hired women to play a lesbian couple in the commercial, but they quickly found that lesbians preferred more subtlety; “XENA LVR” on a license plate, or bumper stickers with the names of popular LGBTQ+ destinations, or taglines of “Get out. Stay out.” that could be used for the outdoors–or the closet.
Subaru said “We see you. We support you.” They sponsored Pride parades and partnered with Rainbow Card and hired Martina Navratilova as spokeswoman. They put their money where their mouth is and went into it whole hog. In a time where companies did not want to take our money, Subaru said, “Why not? They’re people who drive.” And that was groundbreaking.
My rationale for House planets is as follows:
First: Earth. Only planet with water, birthplace of humanity.
Second: Mars. The military core of the empire, Ares/Mars is a war god.
Third: Neptune. Tridentarii, Neptune/Poseidon had a trident.
Fourth: Saturn. Mostly process of elimination, but makes sense to be close to the Fifth.
Fifth: Jupiter. Described as the house with the greatest size and metaphorical gravity. Magnus quotes Fifth poetry describing a great red spot.
Sixth: Mercury. The Sixth is closest to Dominicus (the sun).
Seventh: Venus. Cytherea is the birthplace of Aphrodite, Greek counterpart to Venus.
Eighth: Uranus. Also mostly process of elimination, but the objectively funniest planet for the Eighth house to center on.
Ninth: Pluto. The most distant house, a house that was never meant to exist on a dwarf planet kicked out of the formerly nine planets.
Maybe it’s just because I’m Jewish but I do truly believe that life gets ten times better when you learn to complain cheerfully
I'd divorce him too lmao
renly is so funny hes the closest thing in this series to a normal modern human man dropped into medieval fantasy europe so obviously he had to die. poor renly you deserve to live in a world with podcasts and grindr :'( hope you get reincarnated in new jersey
Just rediscovered potentially the funniest thing I’ve written in recent memory
harrow the ninth is really like. what if orpheus didn't turn around. what if he wasn't going to turn around. what if he kept his face pointed resolutely ahead and trusted that she was there even not knowing what he was hoping for. what if orpheus had to be cajoled and threatened and eventually forced to turn around. what if eurydice hadn't been told the rules and also had a crippling fear of abandonment and spent the whole time pleading with him to look at her. what if orpheus trusted that she would follow him but eurydice couldn't trust that he would care. what if orpheus was told point-blank that eurydice was almost certainly not actually behind him and he chose to keep walking anyway. what if eurydice touched sunlight again and orpheus wasn't there. what then.
I'm struggling to even type this but... Yzma from the Emperor's New Groove was lowkey an awakening for me
Girl an awakening to WHAT
why are star wars planets more boring than earth and our solar system like sure we’ve seen desert, snow, diff types of forest, beach, lava, rain, but like…
rainbow mountains (peru)
red soil (canada/PEI)
rings (saturn’s if they were on earth)
bioluminescent waves
northern lights (canada)
salt flats (bolivia, where they filmed crait but did NOTHING COOL WITH IT except red dust?? like??? come ON)
and cool fauna like the touch me not or like, you know, the venus flytrap.. and don’t get me started on BUGS like… we have bugs cooler than sw aliens
BASICALLY like???? come on star wars you had one (1) job where are the cool alien species
the first law of tragedies: the end is already written and inevitable. the second law of tragedies: your actions are all your own and you can choose to get off this ride whenever you want. the third law of tragedies: we both know that you are never going to do that.
they/them, 20s | locked tomb brainrot
230 posts