Update on WrongCards
Earlier this month I wrote a post on a particular ecard I saw on WrongCards.
A week later, I received an email from the person who created the card. While they noted that what they sent me was a personal letter and I will not publish it in its entirety here, here are the important parts:
“i created the ‘come back to my place for coffee and rohypnol’ card’ as a satyrist and not a celebrator of violence against women. satire here, in my view, shouldn’t be gentle - this is in an your face, offensive statement: ‘look at yourself, society and be aware’. The idea that people intoxicate themselves and make themselves vulnerable in public is a fact that cannot be reasoned with. in the same way: its bad to smoke, but it cant be reasoned with either. to explain that ecard: people seem to need pretexts for intimacy, so they can say ‘oh i didnt mean to do that, i was drunk’- for what? dignity? the fact people seem to need that is one point worth underscoring. we can’t stop them. The ecard is satire. it’s like adbusting in an unlikely place. as a subtle PSA, the hope is that if people carry it in their mind as something funny that they saw, they may remember the next time a stranger (or even someone they think they know) offers them a drink. Preaching, in my belief, doesn’t work. nobody thinks they’ll make a mistake like that. i’ll do things like that at wrongcards, i just have to be careful about not doing it too often or people won’t come and it’ll be irrelevent.”
First of all, I am all about public service announcements that are intended to help others from, in this case, making a decision such as accepting a drink that you did not see made for you. However, I can still think of about a hundred different ways to go about creating a PSA that is geared towards trying to warn people of the dangers surrounding them rather than publishing an ecard that says “Wanna come back to my place for coffee and rohypnol?” on a website that prides itself on being wrong.
The people who visit that site are mostly the kind of people who find jokes about rape funny and would most definitely see the card in question as funny and then move on, rather than lay in bed, waiting to fall asleep and think back to that funny picture that they saw on that website about rohypnol and think a little more in depth about it. Most likely, the people who saw this card did think it was funny and probably sent it to their friends to get their kicks from for about five seconds before moving on to the next wrong, but equally as “funny” picture.
While the creator’s intentions may have been good and while they thought that targeting their idea on a website with high traffic would be an effective ploy to place a subtle PSA, I am going to call this one like I see it–Ineffective.
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Even though you’re still totally right, Holly, I still think it’s pretty cool that the wrongcards rep took the time to send you an explanation. I’m a sucker for good PR moves - it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t just concede their mistake and get rid of the card though. That would’ve wrapped this situation up nicely.
I agree with you, its sick that they put out such a card that sounds like it approves of date rape. Then again it is a ‘wrong’ site
I think that sometimes people misunderstand the concepts of satire and parody.
from dictionary.com:
the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
Adbusters and such you know that they are using advertising language to point out advertising’s assumptions. This card is not in the right context to be considered satire. As we see over and over, that phrase and others like it are used as humor, I don’t see how this card necessary is ridiculing rape culture.
I still think what I wrote here two weeks ago. Something like this only makes people accept it as a part of life. Plus, if they see it as a humor, they will be more tolerant when something like that happens. And when you look at a rape, it is really not funny. It cant be. No matter what circumstances are.
This card fails big time.
I’m pleasantly surprised by the fact that you even received this e-mail, but I think it’s a weak argument. WrongCards don’t seem to have a very great positive value, and out of context — which is how, I believe, they are MEANT to be seen — they are simply offensive. They’re there for shock value and humour, and without explanation, they don’t shock for that positive purpose the creator supposedly intends.