Way to hold your ground, Hasbro.
Well, kind of…
I flipped on the TV this morning, as part of my morning ritual and self-allotted 30 minutes of “news” time (Ritual sounds so much more worldly than “routine,” doesn’t it?), to see what was going on in the world.
Cryptocurrency is having a rough week. Sorry, Dax!
And evidently, the media was having a full-blown celebration that Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head were not going to be a Mr. or Mrs. anymore, and the toy was becoming “gender neutral.”
There were articles and Tweets everywhere about it this morning, all stating that Hasbro was dropping the “Mister,” and the Mr. Potato Head game was heading straight down the expressway of wokefulness, making a beeline to Gender-Neutral town.
What in the actual … ?
Why?
I don’t believe everything I read, when it comes to “news articles.”
Having learned a long time ago, that the people that write those articles often have self-fulfilling agendas, I now take the time to delete the browser with the “article” in it, and then go straight to the source to read what that person, or company spokesman person, actually said.
Here’s what I found:
Hasbro created some confusion for itself.
First, it announced that Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head were going to just be “Potato Head” games.
Then, it announced that it was keeping the Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head names, on the plastic children’s games, and everybody that didn’t like it could go pound sand.
Think about it for a minute.
When there are two, gender-specific toys, that doubles the profits, over one gender-neutral toy.
This has diddly to do with be “woke.”
It’s about making money, cheddar, bank, cash, moolah, profits, dough, scratch, coin, Benjamins, clams, greenbacks…
Hasbro is multi-billion dollar company.
As a company, I’m wondering how much pressure they were receiving to change their gender-specific toys.
Because it certainly seems to me like they initially caved.
And once they received the feedback from their actual consumers, they did an immediate 180, opting to NOT rebrand their gender-specific toys.
This whole ridiculous debacle got me wondering about this “cancel culture” society that we’ve, somehow, adopted as normal and adapted to — much like a declawed cat adapts to its newly clawless paws.
It hurts, and we hate it, but we can’t do anything about it, so we adapt.
We — the general American public — don’t seem to have a lot of say in what’s deemed acceptable anymore, but for our consumer rights.
And judging by the Tweets that Hasbro received from the American consumer — 13K and counting — the American consumer let Hasbro know, right quick, that they wouldn’t purchase the “gender-neutral” toy and thought the whole premise was hogwash.
Doesn’t it remind you of the Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby closing-on-Sundays fights those two companies had to endure?
Is there anything better than Chick-Fil-A’s chicken sandwich and waffle fries?
Whether you’re a person who believes in and loves God, is irrelevant in this discussion.
The point is that these companies have the right to conduct their business however and whenever they please.
These two particular companies held their ground, and they are not open on Sundays.
We all adapted.
And here’s the kicker:
While Hasbro received tens of thousands of Tweets from angry consumers who were against their attempt to appease the woke few, Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby received tens of thousands of Tweets supporting their decision to close their businesses on Sundays, as both companies held their ground.
Hasbro caved. The other two companies did not.
Regardless, if the “Mister,” in the name of the toy, Mr. Potato Head, offends some “woke” folks, then they have the right to exercise their consumer rights and not buy the toy.
Nothing’s changed, in that regard. Every one of us has always had that consumer right.
Just don’t buy it, if it offends you.
Easy-peasy, right?
I’m guessing that Hasbro crunched the numbers and decided that they’d survive the hit of losing the “woke” crowd’s Mr. Potato Head’s dollars.
And if it’s Sunday, you can stand in line at the Chick-Fil-A restaurant, in any American airport, all day long, if you want (It’ll be a short line. You’ll be the only one in it).
You still won’t get a chicken sandwich and waffle fries.
When was the last time you stood your ground?
It’s almost never easy, and usually you’ll be standing there all by yourself.
Some call holding your ground courageous, and sometimes it is.
Sometimes, people want to battle it out over every single issue.
I say, “Choose your battles wisely. If you fight every single battle, you’ll be too exhausted to win the really important ones.”
Well, damn.
Now, all I can think about is Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich, followed by a trip to Hobby Lobby.
More tomorrow,
-A