Beef, Please
The side of my brain that processes and ultimately conveys ‘wokeness’ approached this story in two stages:
1) Do I look out of touch if I continue to acknowledge this practise, this blatant ‘roasting’ by this callous brand, and am I thus sucking at existing quietly on the Internet?
2) Say I do engage with this, and make Wendy’s #NationalRoastDay the subject of my first blog entry in 2022 — with what nugget of deepness, forget the wokeness for just a sec’, may I render this a thinkpiece?
It occurred to me in the bathroom just now, which is where everything occurs to me, that it’s a little hard to gauge: but the Internet has enabled advertising to sneak in amongst what media we presume we permit into our lives consciously.
My favourite stroke of communications genius in the last decade is still the Fearless Girl statue that McCann Worldgroup placed in front of Manhattan’s charging bull in 2017, to decry the distinct lack of women executives on Wall Street. Who would’ve thought an ‘ad’, or anything purposely engineered for a client by an agency, would be so relevant as to spark debate about its place amongst a city’s monumental furniture?
It’s one thing to venture an act of creative expression that makes folks want to take selfies with it; but when it just so happens to be a hell of a polemical statement too? I wonder how many boxes State Street Global Advisors hadn’t even considered at the time of briefing, that Fearless Girl thundered forward and ticked anyways.
Then there’s whoever the hell runs Wendy’s Twitter account.
Something astounding is at play when a brand, any brand, is capable of a) exiting multiple skirmishes with rival eateries with nary a blemish, and b) motivating online onlookers to request their own spoonfuls of masterly abuse. Who’s the maverick intern, I wonder, that said no one’s going to care about us tweeting about our breakfast menu all day — let’s just blow it all to shit and see what happens?
I am generally allergic to the put-down culture of the Internet and particularly of social media. But this is such a fascinating snapshot of the era in which we’ve lived (because the pandemic … certainly posits that we commence a new one). In our television, and to a lesser extent our movies, this generation has revelled in and normalised the anti-hero. We want our protagonists to pull the various homicidal triggers we merely hologram at the back of our minds, and we sometimes want our brands to slap us around. To speak freely, by all means, but barely even mention the product. To declare in no uncertain terms that we, the customer, are no longer king.
The synesthesia of it, too, surely matters. A brand that’s seen Americans and their grandparents march the nation’s streets, return from wars, import and export cultures from all over the world, is suddenly also the face of a generation’s apathy, disillusionment, and smouldering existential crisis. I almost pulled the ‘resistance’ trigger too, but that would miss the point; the brand that wins, that’s most audible in the digital age, isn’t the one that pays lip service to moral solidarity.
There she is: pig-tailed, red-headed, blue-ribboned, with a smile you can envision easily on a postage stamp or in the cultural vicinity of a Beach Boys record. Now Wendy’s classic visage serves the purpose of pacifying you as she says something cheeky about your hairline, your mom, or your billion-dollar business.
Here are some highlights, methinks, from yesterday.
Image courtesy of @Wendys
In response to @POWERADE:
How does it feel to be the official beverage of stomach flu?
I’ve never had a Powerade, I don’t think — but I presume this is a reference to something like how Pepsi helps me deal with a spot of squeaky bum every now and then, and how squeaky bum (thus) affords me an actual health-related reason to consume Pepsi. The daintiness of the burn is as much in the nasty association it makes, as in the slogan-esque ring of it. Wendy’s is almost recommending a new, roast-based Twitter bio here. 3/5.
In response to @JägermeisterUSA:
Sure, I’ll have a tequila.
Succinct, dismissive, and yet uber-polite. 4/5.
In response to @OrigCupNoodles:
Let’s just put it this way: if we leaked your noods, nobody would notice.
For context, an exciting new shop (Mischief USA) put together an ad campaign with a clever play on the phonetics of, well, nudes. Here, Wendy’s combines market awareness with withering disdain. 3/5.
In response to @ChrisStub:
Mr. Stub’s bio says he produces/hosts live video for “massive non-profit fundraisers.” He ever so kindly discloses that when he requested a roast back in 2019, Wendy’s simply copied and pasted his Twitter bio in response. Sensational, masterful work. 5/5.
In response to @richaaron10tv:
There’s a deadly storm front rolling through and it’s your hairline.
Richard (Somebody) appears to be a television personality of some kind, and I sincerely hope he’s a weatherman. Full marks for sheer whip elasticity. 5/5.
In response to @lambofgod:
My dad really dug your stuff.
I can’t tell whether Lamb Of God is a Christian heavy metal band or not; but the burn holds up. I can visualise Wendy’s staring down the melodic monsoon of the group’s sound, Fearless Girl-style. 3/5.
In response to @beatsbydre:
I’ve gotten better sound quality out of a Q-tip.
JESUS CHRIST, WENDY’S. 5/5/5/5/5/5/5.
In response to @Postmates:
You’re the reason millennials can’t afford mortgages.
This one essays such observational heft. To me, this lobs a grenade at young people’s unwillingness to get up and cook something — at the not-so-loveable brands that enable any of their malaise — and at a society that straddles them with debt. Low-key deep, or maybe another week’s isolation is officially getting to me now. 3/5.
In response to @alexmorgan13:
We just can’t, Alex.
Huh. Wendy’s has its limits after all, and they appear to be US Women’s National Soccer Team champions.
I would have personally gone with: Hey, good luck enjoying your inevitable … retirement in the, uh, gleam of all those … trophies. 2/5.
In response to @conquerdivide:
If I wanted a bad Ed Sheeran cover I’d just go listen to Ed Sheeran.
BURN IT ALL DOWN, WENDY’S, YES. 4/5.
In response to @adage:
Look, it’s Boomer Adweek!
In referring to advertising industry journal Ad Age as ‘Boomer Adweek’, for being longer-tenured, Wendy’s shows great awareness for her industrial surroundings, or perhaps she just saw several episodes of Mad Men. 4/5.
In response to @VisitOrlando:
Orlando: Where families try to fix themselves.
Gawd, this is so gosh darn mean. 5/5.
