Colgnago's Bad Tweet

This tweet from the Italian biking company, Colnago, was very controversial. The woman bending over the bike along with the caption is suggestive of sex. Some companies, like Carl’s/aHardy’s Jr. use sex in their ads and are also criticized but since this is a tweet, people were able to reply to it and the company responsible directly.

The woman even has the company’s logo on her butt, making this far worse than it initially is when first looked upon. Twitter users also pointed out that the woman in the photo wasn’t even wearing proper clothing for biking let alone shoes.

This introduces a stereotype of women in ads for selling sexuality. People who do not know about this company could assume that they degrade women due to this tweet going viral for the controversy it brings. Women may find this offensive and may not want to buy from this brand. It’s understandable that they wanted to be “edgy and funny”. However, some brands must be careful the way they do it. Wendy’s Twitter is well known for its edgy content, but it’s widely accepted and not sexualizing a woman bending over a bike. Perhaps Colnago was aiming for more male customers. Even still, not all bike customers are male and neither is Twitter. The company was right to apologize for this.

Stereotyping when it is obviously comedy can be funny. Unfortunately, the message of something being funny while also offensive is not always accepted. Some people refuse to acknowledge that type of humor. I personally find that crude humor funny.

Stereotyping is considered bad, generally, because it allows whoever is hearing about this stereotype to already have prejudice before knowing individuals of that group. Being a black woman myself, I know this all too well. It even goes beyond my physical appearance with things I enjoy such as anime and video games. We take these stereotypes to try to figure out how we navigate the world but it’s not like that at all. Honestly, I don’t think stereotypes are all bad. I believe there are some truths to every stereotype. I’m not suggesting that it’s all true but it came from somewhere, I believe.