Althouse: "Why is it OK for Sesame Street—a children's show, for goodness' sake—to make this kind of jest, but not Best Buy?"

December 12, 2014

"Why is it OK for Sesame Street—a children's show, for goodness' sake—to make this kind of jest, but not Best Buy?"

"Well, even though Sesame Street is a business, it's also a nonprofit with plenty of accrued good faith and a long history of engaging in cultural commentary. Best Buy is a big company that sells electronics and exists to make money."

40 comments:

donald said...: I watch way too much TV. I have no idea who these people are. Fuck em. Seriously.; 12/12/14, 4:28 PM
JAORE said...: Me either, Donald, me either.; 12/12/14, 4:32 PM
Big Mike said...: Best Buy should have tweeted back something along the lines of "We think it's funny. If U don't then GET FUCKED."

Doesn't anyone realize that last month's election was nothing if not a massive pushback against the "we hate capitalism because there's insufficient room for graft" type people.; 12/12/14, 4:42 PM
Big Mike said...: Or does Twitter make you put asterisks in the middle letters of the vulgar term for coitus?; 12/12/14, 4:43 PM
rehajm said...: Before this week I believed the rules were- companies that cheat their customers are evil and Harvard professors are immune from legitimate criticism.

Now this. I don't know what to believe anymore.; 12/12/14, 4:47 PM
Fritz said...: The coalition of the permanently aggrieved at work.

They don't remember the story about the little boy who cried wolf.; 12/12/14, 4:48 PM
Murph said...: I thought the Best Buy line was great. It emphasized their line of state-of-the-art electronics by contrast with the obsolete concept of a pay phone.

It never would have occurred to me that "pay phone" might have some significant meaning to TV watchers (I don't have a TV, and so miss a lot of current cultural references. To no dismay of mine, whatsoever.)

One by one, or phrase by phrase, we are losing useful English vocabulary because someone, somewhere, invents grounds to take offense.; 12/12/14, 4:49 PM
B said...: Running a business for profit. Even more evil than murder.; 12/12/14, 4:53 PM
Unknown said...: These are all good questions and good points. Sesame Street is able to do it more subliminally? Best Buy would be far too obvious?; 12/12/14, 4:56 PM
Dan in Philly said...: Sorry, but WTF was BB thinking??? Joking you don't have a pay phone when that was a key part of a girls murder? Am I understanding this right??? Am I missing something here??; 12/12/14, 4:56 PM
Charlie Martin said...: Because some animals are more equal than others.; 12/12/14, 5:01 PM
Unknown said...: My support of Sesame Street is coerced. Best Buy gets little from me but nothing involuntarily. The joke is corny. It's the enterprise that depends on a vampiric bureaucracy that is offensive.; 12/12/14, 5:03 PM
Mark said...: Very different jokes. Best Buy's joke directly addresses a murder, normally something PR avoids.; 12/12/14, 5:05 PM
n.n said...: The social complex has a complex. Both Best Buy and Sesame Street's Twits are missing context that has been conveniently supplied by the serially outraged.; 12/12/14, 5:16 PM
retired said...: Sesame St is a beloved PBS liberal icon. Best Buy is an evil capitalist business.; 12/12/14, 5:18 PM
rhhardin said...: "Too soon?" jokes are my favorites. The question itself is the punchline.

It's a refusal to have your cooperation counted on in the news narrative.; 12/12/14, 5:47 PM
MadisonMan said...: BB should definitely have added "Too Soon" to their tweet.

Then it's better.; 12/12/14, 5:58 PM
MadisonMan said...: And Daniel, I believe what you're missing is a sense of black humor.; 12/12/14, 5:58 PM
mccullough said...: Most colleges are non-profit as well. They are more evil than the oil companies; 12/12/14, 6:28 PM
richard mcenroe said...: I am outraged that people are singing the praises of Sesame Street, a show that profits from its association with the same Jim Henson Studio that affronted our children with astonishing misogyny in the form of the Muppets' blatant sexual aggression against Crystal Gayle and Connie Stevens right on the air!

Wake up, sheeple! Just because they were short doesn't make it microaggression!; 12/12/14, 6:38 PM
Birkel said...: Can I get a list of things about which one may not joke? What are the rules for different identity politics groups? As a Native, may I joke about some things white guys cannot? How does that compare to women?

It is confusing.

Thanks in advance.; 12/12/14, 6:46 PM
Anonymous said...: "Joking you don't have a pay phone when that was a key part of a girls murder?"

It's a fictional murder. As in, not real.; 12/12/14, 7:24 PM
Birkel said...: TCom:
It's a real murder, I believe.; 12/12/14, 7:38 PM
Scott said...: In 2005, the New York Times estimated that Children's Television Workshop's revenue from overseas syndication alone of Sesame Street was $96 million. It should be safe to say that CTW has made another billion dollars of profit since then.

Being a "nonprofit" doesn't automatically imbue an enterprise with virtue. In fact, I think Best Buy is more virtuous because it's not sheltering the money it makes from taxation. Maybe CTW's style of capitalism is just more clever.; 12/12/14, 7:40 PM
Mary Beth said...: It's a fictional murder. As in, not real.

Hae Min Lee was murdered. What part of it are you calling fictional?; 12/12/14, 7:40 PM
el polacko said...: "a business" that is "also a non-profit" ...?!?! ... does not compute {crackle..ZAP}..does not compute !; 12/12/14, 7:46 PM
Whitey Sepulchre said...: A lot of people are trying to get kicked in the nuts. Roshambo. I say do it.; 12/12/14, 7:49 PM
n.n said...: This reminds me of the "black hole" controversy concocted by the NAACP in order to extort money from Hallmark. Since that time, black holes have been reclassified as gray holes in order to comply with social regulations.; 12/12/14, 8:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Nonprofits suck money from those who make profits.

But don't fret, it won't be long now for the non-profitable Best Buy to fold and disappear into the ash heap of brick-and-mortar history.; 12/12/14, 8:28 PM
LYNNDH said...: Well, not really knowing what "Serial" is certainly adds to my complete bewilderment on the issue. Might the ad agency also not know what "Serial" is?; 12/12/14, 8:43 PM
Gahrie said...: Am I missing something here??

Just a sense of humor.; 12/12/14, 10:32 PM
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tim maguire said...: Lynndh, the fact that they used the #serial hashtag shows they know what it's about. That tweet is head shakingly stupid from a marketing standpoint, but I don't get the Sesame Street/Best Buy distinction--murder isn't funny until at least enough time has past that the person probably would have been dead anyway.; 12/13/14, 5:29 AM
stlcdr said...: Black humor. Of course Best Buy knew what it was all about. But can a corporation make such humorous comments?

Most humor is at the expense of someone or something else. People are being more sensitive about it, especially when they have absolutely no connection to that thing. Doesn't necessarily mean it is right, but if it was, it wouldn't be humor, now, would it?; 12/13/14, 6:26 AM
iowan2 said...: 'Sesame Street is a business, it's also a nonprofit'

Nonprofit doesn't mean what people think it means. It is an accounting category and has nothing to do with making money, which Sesame Street does in spades.

To the larger point, people have turned into the perpetually agreived. The danger in that is I no longer take anyones words serious, because most likely their feelings are centered around all the stuff they 'know', are in fact wrong.
ie nonprofit
hands up
white hispanic
racism
war on women; 12/13/14, 7:07 AM
campy said...: Best Buy obviously needs to donate more $ to democrats.; 12/13/14, 8:44 AM
jr565 said...: What the hell is Serial?; 12/13/14, 10:20 AM
Sam L. said...: Some people are so uptight and act like fools at the least what they think is or might be or ought to be a provocation.; 12/13/14, 10:45 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: I no next to nothing about Serial, but surely the people producing the podcasts are making money off the murder rather more directly than the people joking about them.; 12/13/14, 1:45 PM
Joe said...: I "love" how Children's Television Workshop markets the daylights out of Sesame Street and then claims poverty to PBS. (And self-righteously claims that they are different from, and superior to, all the other kids shows created by toy companies.); 12/14/14, 12:21 AM