Category Archives: Wry Society

Why I deleted that post…

Editor’s note: I’ve just deleted the most widely shared post on The Nag, along with its hundreds of associated reader comments. They’ve all been removed from this site out of an abundance of caution (and a wee sigh of despair) because this particular article has, sadly, been adopted as the darling of the anti-science movement – never my intention, even when I was pointing out challenging problems or asking difficult questions. As Dr. Frederick Seitz once observed:

“Once a scientist gets an answer, there are always more questions.”      .   

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Are you guilty of making hegemonic assumptions?

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Hegemony: noun \hi-ˈje-mə-nē, he-jə-ˌmō-nē\. heg·e·mon·ic adjective –  Political or cultural dominance or authority over others.

For example:

“The hegemony of the popular kids over the other students means that they determine what is and is not cool.”

I lived most of my life neither knowing this word nor saying it out loud until my daughter Larissa was working on a sociology paper at university on something called “hegemonic assumptions”.   

Here’s how these assumptions might look: when white, middle-class people of privilege start thinking we understand what it’s like to live in poverty because we spend one afternoon every Christmas volunteering at an inner city soup kitchen, we’re making a whack of hegemonic assumptions.
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Selling healthy nutrition: what the experts just don’t get

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Earth to Cleveland Clinic: under no circumstances is a bowl of oatmeal (even one as photogenic as this one featured on your Twitter feed) a “swap” for bacon.

The only possible swap for bacon is another piece of bacon. Turkey bacon is NOT bacon. Those dreadful soy protein veggie bacon-bits are NOT bacon. And a bowl of oatmeal is most certainly NOT bacon.  The only bacon product worth eating is real bacon. Period.   Continue reading →

Liberation wrapper lets Japanese women open wide

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Freshness Burger, a national burger chain in Japan, came up with an innovative way to convince reluctant female customers to take a great big bite of the chain’s biggest burger. For Japanese women, having a small and modest mouth – “ochobo” – is regarded as attractive, and having a large, open mouth in public is regarded as “ugly” and “rude”. It’s considered good manners to cover one’s mouth when women need to open up wide. Enter the Liberation Wrapper – and it worked – boosting sales of that big burger by 213% compared to the previous month’s sales after introduction at Freshness Burger.

A grateful hat tip to Sociological Images for this unique cultural marketing example.
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The real battle going on behind the World Cup

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Adidas may be an official corporate partner of the FIFA World Cup, but most of the host country’s national team players in Brazil are wearing Nike. 

This reality must sting for Adidas marketing types. Decades ago, the company launched the groundbreaking practice of paying athletes to wear its shoes, paying sports teams to wear its jerseys, and paying a league to use its ball, as Brendan Greeley reported recently in his Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story.

But just like at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Nike has done it again.  Continue reading →

Top 10 Nags of 2013 from The Ethical Nag

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Yes, darling readers, it is indeed that time once again when all navel-gazing pundits whip up their Top 10 or Best Of  lists for the year that is quickly passing. Let’s do that too here on The Nag.

But first, I want to say Happy New Year to all my blog visitors, and especially to those of you:

  • who choose to share what you like here with friends, family or perfect strangers
  • who take the time to leave your astute, challenging or sometimes downright hilarious comments here – I love reading your feedback!
  • who follow The Nag via RSS feed, Twitter, or email subscriptions (you too can do this just by clicking the appropriate Follow The Nag buttons on the right sidebar of the homepage). I sincerely appreciate your company here.

Now here’s that Top 10 List of the most widely read Nags for 2013:  Continue reading →