Here we go:
My initial, emotion-driven evaluation, when I started seeing the ad (over and over and over and over, watching NFL football), was negative. I think I was responding to the woman seeming sort of unsure of herself, maybe weak in some way — and her husband “saving her” by getting her the machine. I think this got my feminist hackles up. However, upon reflection, I don’t think the commercial is sexist. I don’t think it is about a husband wanting his “116 lb wife to be a 112 lb wife.” It is about an unsure or insecure or unhappy person find strength in accomplishment — and being helped to this by a loved one, by her partner (and, somewhat oddly to my tastes, documenting the whole adventure via selfie). I suspect that the woman playing this role (unsure, insecure, needing support) made me uncomfortable (even though I bring no simple egalitarian ideals to the table). For the images and story of the commercial, in addition to capturing a conventional gender reality (but perhaps also non-conventional psycho-sexual reality) that is not, in itself, obviously objectionable, also easily fits into or slides into representations of gender and marriage roles that are unjust and oppressive. Danger, Will Robinson, danger! My emotional reaction, but not my considered judgment, more or less line up with the negative evaluation of the commercial as sexist. Thoughts?
Policy of Truth 
I thought it was an over-reaction. One could easily envision the roles switched here — a woman buys her husband that Peloton bike he wanted so he could get into shape. The fact that it’s a woman is beside the point. And of course the “story” starts off with her being insecure because think about it: if you’re out of shape (okay, she isn’t but I don’t think that’s the point), then starting a fitness plan makes you feel better physically and mentally.
I started swimming again for the first time in years. I couldn’t swim for quite some time because of nerve damage to my spine. My foot would not flip! Then suddenly it started to. It took a year to be able to just swim for a few minutes without hurting something. Now I’m swimming daily, almost a half mile, and it feels great. Is that sexist because I’m female?
The woman is rather ridiculous, but most commercials are filled with ridiculous people, and advertisers love to have insecure people believe their product will make them stronger, better, faster than a speeding bullet, etc.
There’s way too much pearl clutching these days. It’s mildly offensive if that. There’s much worse out there. How many men watch porn still? I mean if THIS is a problem, then what’s porn? I’ve heard that sex work now is female empowerment. But a woman wanting to be fitter is sexist? I mean, come on. Get over yourselves. Go to a third world country and see what there is to complain about. This is exhausting and we’re a bunch of wusses.
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Alison tactfully doesn’t mention that she asked me to get her a Fitbit for her birthday, which was back in September. It’s December, and I haven’t actually done it. Why? Well, I wouldn’t want to contribute to the insidious sexism of the Fitbit industry, would I?
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Keep trying.
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Don’t have time for a substantive comment, but couldn’t help throwing this anecdote out there. A few weeks ago, I met a male friend whom I hadn’t seen in nearly a year. I told him that he “looked good” and had lost weight (intended as a compliment; this is how 50-year-old men talk). Response: “Yeah, my wife got me a Peloton.” I didn’t, until I read your post, know what a Peloton was–as you know, I don’t watch football–but I figured it was some kind of high-end exercise machine. So I made a gesture as though to say, “What a cool wife you have.” Having just watched the ad, I’m no longer sure whether he was serious or joking.
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So, a break in the day for my “substantive” comment. I guess I found it mildly sexist, but mostly I found it irritating and silly–meaning her nervous apprehension about getting on the bike. I get that the Peloton gives you a hard workout, but “I’m a little nervous…but excited”? I could see that if she was climbing a mountain or giving birth, but she’s just climbing onto a stationary bike. OK, a $2,500 stationary bike. But lady, if the workout becomes too much…just get off! She acts as though the bike is going to yell at her or bite her if she stops in the middle of the workout. Or maybe her family will disown her? It just seems like a strange selling point: “Buy this bike, so you can experience the anxiety that this woman has imposed on herself!” The sexist element is that I don’t they’d ever portray a guy this way. What guy would ever cringe before a Bowflex and say, “I’m a little nervous…but excited”?
Here’s a useful comparison/contrast to illustrate how ordinary people actually react to difficult workout programs. The women start out more nervous than the guys, but none as cringing or cringey as Peloton Lady.
Come on, admit it: you want to do P90X at this point. More than you want a Peloton.
The end scene, where she gets teary, and says she didn’t realize how much the Peloton would change her, strikes me as over the top. What strikes me here is not so much the sexism as the sheer commercialist ickiness of the whole thing. “A commodity has changed my life, and it can change yours, too.” Honestly, how is this any better than the Jehovah’s Witnesses? I mean, between watching this commercial and watching one of equal length for a fundamentalist Protestant Bible study program, it’s a toss up.
That said, the reaction to the Peloton commercial does seem overblown. I can agree with that much.
That was my substantive comment. I’m out of time.
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Yeah, they would never portray a guy this way. Why does this make it sexist though (and what counts as sexist and why)? Difference or disparity in gender or sex roles is not necessarily sexist. I think my ‘this is sexist’ emotional reaction had to do with what is sometimes called “complicity with suspect norms.” But what are the suspect norms (roles, evaluations) and what counts as complicity (and what degree of complicity is problematic)? My initial emotional reaction, put into words and partially answering these questions, was something like “this portrays women as weak and needing to be rescued by a strong man and that violates my version of egalitarian values regarding sex or gender.” But — thinking about it — women do score higher on psychological neuroticism (roughly worrying about things and having self-doubt) measures than men and it seems probable that not all of this is due to bad norms, role models, etc. that we can and should change. It seems at least reasonably likely that this commercial depicts, in exaggerated form, a kind of pattern that men and women in committed romantic relationship tend to fall into that — through somewhat fraught with the danger of falling into the endorsement of unjust gender norms — does not itself constitute such endorsement. And so it would be odd (though interesting!) to switch the roles. Maybe the commercial doesn’t do enough to guard against the slide into sexist tropes? (I’m torn on whether this is true. It seems to me that this is a matter of social contention that might be decided, when or if it is, by who wins.) If so, does that make it sexist? If so, I think only in a mild way (that clashes with the common “charged” or debate-stopping use of the term).
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I think your question practically answers itself. Start from our common ground assumption that they would never portray a guy like this. So why would they portray a woman like that? My answer: partly it’s complicity in suspect norms, and partly it’s the perpetuation of an easily digestible stereotype. Now, if your point is that there’s no sexism here because women do in fact score higher on measures of psychological neuroticism, I guess I have two separate lines of response. One is that I find such measures extremely dubious. That’s a long argument of its own.
Second, even if we accept the neuroticism findings, I think the explanations for the disparity (or alleged disparity) are bound to be environmental, not “natural” (i.e., intrinsic to the anatomy, physiology, and genotype of women as women). If that’s right, we have a clear inference to the suspect norms in question: we’ve inculcated neuroticism in women and girls; that’s why there’s a disparity between them and boys/men. If so, all that such commercials do is reinforce a suspect norm by pandering to the people who believe in it. I don’t mean that the commercial is there in order to reinforce the norm. I mean that that’s a predictable effect, relied on for other purposes.
As Alison implies, this is what all commercials do, but then, Alison says that all commercials are sexist. I don’t know about “all,” but a gigantic proportion are. That hardly contradicts what I’m saying. It is what I’m saying. I don’t have a definition of sexism handy, but I would say that reinforcing sex-based stereotypes because it’s easy to do is a sufficient condition for engaging in it. And the condition is met even if you don’t intend specifically to be sexist, or your primary aim is elsewhere (e.g., to sell a product while making an endearing point at the same time).
Another way of putting the same point: the inference from a stereotype to a particular individual is an instance of the fallacy of division. We grant this in the case of race but are (for no good reason) more reluctant in the case of gender. Young black males commit crimes at a higher rate than other demographics. It’s one thing to admit this fact, and another thing to turn it into a stereotype of young black males. It’s yet another thing, and a worse thing, to exploit that stereotype for political purposes. But that’s exactly what happened with Bob Bidinotto’s famous Willie Horton article in Reader’s Digest, which later became part of George H.W. Bush’s political campaign against Michael Dukakis.
To this day, Bidinotto affects a kind of outraged innocence about the use made of his article in that campaign. Wasn’t Willie Horton black? Didn’t he commit the crimes in question? Isn’t it a legitimate criticism of prison furlough programs that he committed a crime after being let out on one? Yes three times over, but this is also studiously to miss the point. We all know that Willie Horton plays to an insidious, damaging stereotype. To play to the stereotype while pretending that there is no stereotype and that no damage was done by the anti-Horton ad is a form of bad faith. It’s bad enough that the GOP used in 1988, but they’ve resurrected it. They know that stereotypes play for decades.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/this-1988-ad-inspired-the-gops-latest-attack-on-tim-kaine/2016/10/03/c74931f8-8980-11e6-8cdc-4fbb1973b506_video.html
Here’s Bidinotto’s article:
I cite the Willie Horton example because it’s a very clear case of stereotype-exploitation with high stakes. The Peloton commercial is a less clear case with much lower stakes. But the same pattern is there in milder form.
I agree with everyone here that the response to the ad has been overwrought. A lot of the response to the ad consists in grandstanding intended to display one’s anti-sexist bona fides to the world. Fair enough. That’s because, as commercials go, this one isn’t particularly offensive. It’s uncommonly silly, but not uncommonly offensive. If we took every 30 second commercial to task for the stereotypes it reinforced, or the manipulations it engaged in, we’d be here until Kingdom Come, and we’d be doing the advertisers’ work for them. But that doesn’t change the fact that if you ask me pointblank, “Is this ad sexist?”–my answer is, yes, a little.
So I’m agreeing with your initial emotional reaction. You were right the first time around, wrong to dispel that reaction in second thoughts. Perhaps we’re agreeing that the sexism here is mild. What I definitely don’t agree with is that there is a sense of term “sexist” that’s debating stopping. There are ways of deploying just about any term so as to stop a debate (e.g., the “OK” in “OK, boomer”), but the sheer use of the term “sexist” is not debate-stopping, even if the person using it means to convey a very sharp condemnation or rebuke. The world is full of things that deserve sharp condemnation and rebuke. This ad may not be one of them, but this ad aside, I would never waive my right to call a spade a spade, or a sexist a sexist.
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there is no sexism involved here though and suggesting that the neuroticism is down to environmental factors seems to follow a bigger trend of attempting to reduce problems down to some nebulous notion of “culture”. Feminists, conservatives and the alt right are all very fond of doing that I’ve observed.
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That comment just looks like a red herring dropped into a (thereby) poisoned well.
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You are right that, even if the stereotype or generalization about women used in the commercial is not itself sexist (say in the sense of it having some content or attitude that is demeaning to or inferiorizing toward women), it might tend to bring to mind a stereotype that is pernicious in this way. That’s precisely what I noticed in myself (though I of course did not endorse it) when I had my initial reaction! There are two ways that this might be a problem: (a) it being inherently objectionable that people (this person, that person, any person, more people) endorse and use such pernicious stereotypes and (b) these stereotypes gaining significant additional public/social existence and having downstream effects that harm women. I think it is pretty easy to know when [a] is happening (both the content-based inferential or associative causal links and the sheer injustice of the end-point content and attitudes are obvious) but much harder to know when [b] is happening (after all, this is a causal claim that concerns large-scale social causation). Interestingly, folks tend to stress much-iffier claims like [b].
Both [a] and [b] happen, at least in some small way, whenever someone states some kernel of truth (or something false) that can lead people to reason, in a motivated way, toward endorsing or using the pernicious stereotype. In this way, there is a conflict between truth-telling (especially the hard-nosed ‘can you handle the truth?’ sort of truth-telling) and being sensitive to the propagation of pernicious sexist (racist, etc.) stereotypes. (Conveniently, the conflict goes away when the triggering stereotype or generalization is false. Well then: no type-specific negative traits of historically oppressed groups allowed!) I don’t deny the second value. I’d like to be more sensitive to it, but, for better or for worse, I’m usually pretty solidly in the ‘suck it up, buttercup’ camp. A function of a rather strong… policy of truth! Maybe my policy of promoting good (or justice) needs to get stronger.
I now agree with you that the commercial is mildly sexist, at least in the manner of probably having some tendency to promote pernicious sex-based stereotypes. I find the sex or gender roles depicted accurate-enough and innocuous enough in themselves (I think we disagree here), but they probably do, at least to some extent, propagate genuinely pernicious stereotypes. Some guy, somewhere — and probably quite a few of them — see the commercial and feel more comfortable in thinking of women as inherently weak, unsure of themselves, needing the protection of a strong man, etc. Pretty weak and not worth wasting much outrage over (after all, almost any negative stereotype or generalization about a group of people will feed some standing prejudice against that group). I like the idea of making the associated pernicious stereotypes explicit, and making it explicit that one does not endorse them, whenever one points out — even just to oneself — some negative features that people in some group tend to have. In this vein, the Peloton commercial could have depicted Peloton Woman as confident and strong after getting the bike — as well as grateful to her husband. And her nervousness or self-doubt did not need to be so exaggerated.
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I think (b) is made plausible by the fact that what we’re talking about is an ad produced by professionals–in other words, a heavily researched, completely self-conscious attempt to pander to what plays in the market. As I see it, the default assumption to employ here is that if a stereotype finds its way into an ad, it was put there on purpose. Different standards apply to ordinary talk or other contexts, but a heuristic of suspicion is appropriate when we’re talking about ads, where deception and manipulativeness are taken for granted as operating techniques. (In business law, “puffery” in advertising–i.e., mild deception, exaggeration, etc.–is taken as fair game rather than culpable deception or fraud.) If the maker of an ad uses a stereotype, he intends for it to gain widespread social traction, and given how ads work, they do get some. If the stereotype is false, it’s bound to be at least mildly harmful. So I don’t see (b) as all that iffy.
I wouldn’t put things this way:
For one thing, I take “p is a stereotype” to entail p’s falsity. As I use the term, a stereotype, as stated in a proposition, is by definition an over-generalization (in some cases, an over-generalized version of some true claim). My impression is that this is the way the term is used in social psychology.
On wrongness, what I’d say is: it’s wrong to engage in discourse involving type-specific negative traits of any group, historically oppressed or not. Obviously, there are degrees of severity here, but I don’t think type-specific negative-trait discourse about white males, or boomers, or anyone else, is a good thing. One problematic feature of the recent trend of naming people as “Barbecue Becky,” or “Permit Patty,” or “Cornerstone Caroline” (etc.) is the subtle creation of yet another stereotype, as though in compensation for all the old ones. “Becky,” “Patty,” and “Caroline” are all stereotypically white female names. In using these stereotypical names for women who unwarrantedly called the police on black people, the implicit suggestion seems to be: middle aged white women are racist busybodies (unless they’re demonstrably and obviously left-leaning). I don’t regard this as an improvement. We don’t need new stereotypes to replace the old ones; we need to replace our reliance on stereotypes with a different sort of discourse.
So I don’t see any conflict here between the requirements of truth and of justice. Stereotypes aren’t true, and the promotion of negative stereotypes is unjust. I don’t have a strong view on positive stereotypes, but they strike me as less common anyway.
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Just a little PS: I said that I regard the promotion of negative stereotypes as wrong. A quick thought on humor: lots of humor relies on negative stereotypes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s because in general, I don’t think that the use of stereotypes within comedic contexts promotes negative stereotypes. It uses them, gets a laugh out of them, and (in making them explicit) subtly undermines them.
Granted, sometimes it doesn’t undermine the relevant stereotype. I’d divide the remaining cases into two groups. Sometimes, negative-stereotype-wielding humor straightforwardly promotes the stereotype; in that case, it’s mean-spirited and wrong. Sometimes negative-stereotype-wielding humor satirizes virtue signaling about discourse. But in those cases, I don’t think the humor works unless there is more truth to the stereotype than people widely admit (in other words, in cases where p is less of a stereotype than is widely believed and more plainly an unpalatable truth). That’s the trickiest sort of case, but I admit that it’s possible.
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I use ‘stereotype’ differently, in such a way that stereotypes are, or are composed of, cognitive items identical or analogous to generalizations of the form ‘people (or other sorts of things) of type T tend to have property X’. Stereotypes in this sense can be essentially or mostly true. I also take it that, for reasons of basic cognitive/brain architecture, we cannot avoid using these sorts of stereotypes (especially in our “fast” or intuitive processing). And that, when we don’t have easy-enough access to better individualized information about an individual, using a positive or negative stereotype (in our “slow” or explicit-reasoning type processing) is cognitively — and practically and morally — often justified (though there are moral costs). However, in contrast, the pernicious stereotypes that directly cause the harm are usually different. They are almost always false and almost always held with some degree of tribal/identity bad motivated thinking (often out of something like tribal hatred or scapegoating hatred). And many of them exist precisely to keep the target group in an inferior position. I would agree that using these stereotypes is always wrong. And maybe something like this is what some people mean by ‘stereotype’.
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I would say that off-the-cuff generalizations like “People of type T tend to have traits t1, t2,” where T is an ethnic or gender type (or, in any case: a type that doesn’t causally explain possession of the trait) can only be accepted (if at all) with a proviso to the effect that one’s use of the generalization amounts to a highly defeasible gamble in some narrow context.
In other words, such stereotypes have to be employed with the self-conscious realization that one is applying a mere heuristic to the case of an individual who may flout the heuristic entirely. The middle-aged white woman in front of you may look like a “Barbecue Becky”; the young black guy in front of you may look “sketchy”; the fidgety tenant may appear like he has something to hide; the callow-looking student may appear callow to a certain kind of observer; the soccer-momish looking soccer mom may seem like the classic suburban limousine liberal; etc. etc. But if you rely on stereotyped generalizations of this sort at all, you have to be maximally open to being proven wrong at every turn. None of the stereotypes in these examples genuinely explains possession of the target trait. Looking exactly like the original “Barbecue Becky” has no bearing on whether a given woman would really call the police without justification. Being young, black, wearing a hoodie, and having pants the show your ass crack has no bearing on whether a given person really is a criminal. Etc. Etc.
No matter how fast or slow our cognitive processing, it still has to be guided at some level by the goal of tracking the truth. If being a certain type doesn’t causally explain possession of a certain trait, then it’s unclear how the person using the generalization is tracking the truth in even a minimal way when he relies on it. He’s just thinking really quickly without worrying about the truth of his beliefs. But I don’t think that’s compatible with epistemic virtue. At some level, you have to be concerned with whether your quickly-formed beliefs are true. If not, you’re just being drawn into a rabbit hole of falsehood under the hectic pressure of events.
Of course, if being a certain type causally explains possession of certain traits, that’s another matter altogether. In that case, one “simply” has to tailor the generalization to the evidence in the right way.
One of the problems with discourse in American culture is that there are so many taboos on generalizations about people that the distinction between types that causally explain the possession of certain traits and types that merely correlate with them seems irrelevant to most people. On the one hand, there’s this pious insistence that no one should ever generalize about or judge anyone, ever. On the other hand, since practical life requires both generalizations and judgment, there seems to be an assumption that practical life should be governed by amoral expediency when it comes to the generalizations we’re allowed to rely on in social life. The result is a culture that mouths pieties about tolerance while practicing bigotry in the shadows. (Of course, with the right encouragement, the bigotry comes out of the shadows.) In any case, that’s where I think the action should be: how to make generalizations about people without lapsing into hasty generalizations or false stereotypes.
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We have different frameworks but come to similar conclusions. I think the relevant thing is something like strength of correlation, not causal explanation (of feature-possession by the type). Typically, the correlation is not super-strong, so you should be very much open to revising a stereotype-based verdict if additional evidence is easy enough to come by (and in any case you should treat your conclusion as iffy in proportion to the strength of the correlation, typically not very strong). What I often see is a pattern of confirmation bias that makes gender, ethnic, nationality, etc. stereotypes or generalizations bootstrap their own subjective sense of justification (on the lookout for T’s that are X because you take it that most T’s are X, you see T’s that are X everywhere and ignore the others, making most T being X seem like really solid knowledge). The error here can be purely cognitive (many, perhaps most, people like being certain or having knowledge, not just good guesses), but it psychologically cements in stereotypes that should be regarded as quite iffy (and this can result in injustice and harm). In my experience, a good amount of the “folk wisdom” of landlords is like this.
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All commercials are somewhat sexist. And stupid. And guess what? I hate to tell my sisters who are shouting about this the truth: there are many women who are THAT insecure about their bodies and want male attention more than anything in the world.
I saw the commercial as silly as most commercials are. Let’s look at hair color commercials. They’re dominated by women. Why? Because women color their hair more than men. Well, it’s not rocket science here. Women focus on their bodies much more than men do. And their overall beauty. Is this commercial reinforcing gender norms or is it a reflection of them?
I didn’t take offense to it. It just struck me as rather silly. There are much more important things to be upset about than a commercial like this.
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Hair color commercials are different from this. The only stereotypes that they reinforce are that women are very concerned about their hair, and that it’s really important that when you toss your head, your hair bounces around in this magical way that no one’s hair ever does. That’s a little unrealistic, but not that big a deal, and anyway, it’s not that different from mens’ hair commercials, which suggest that if you use this hair color product, not only will your hair look better, but you will, which will solve your mid-life crisis. When in fact all that will happen is that your hair will look darker but you’ll like the same middle aged dweeb you were before you changed it.
The difference here is that the ad treats it as a sort of given that women are neurotic, but if they buy a Peloton, they become confident and normal. I’m not one to make a big deal out of it, but that is a little sexist.
I think this becomes obvious if you compare the Peloton commercial to other, ordinary commercials.
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/oCuk/bowflex-if-i-can-you-can
You don’t see the women in these commercials going, “Oh my God, I’m so nervous…I have to climb on my Bowflex.” They just get on it. Even the out-of-shape guys just get on it. It just goes to show that there are better and worse commercials. By this standard, the Peloton one is pretty lame.
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The reaction to the ad is even worse than the ad:
OK, so maybe I’m a very atypical male, but I can’t remember the last time I had a fantasy that involved spending $2,245 on another person.
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I consider the public’s reaction to be completely over the top, and it didn’t help that the media blew it out of proportion. I just wrote an article on it, but, briefly, I think the overall reaction is just a projection of the general public’s view of their body image, when, in reality, the ad never focused on weight or appearance to begin with. As to the other criticisms on her “worried” facial expressions – I believe this to be the reality of it. Many people who go into fitness know the initial doubts and second-thoughts, especially when adjusting to a new lifestyle. I think what the ad wanted to emphasize through this is 1) the woman gaining emotional a mental strength (which was the whole point to begin with) and 2) the fact that there needn’t be any worries (as she soon learns) given that the product is meant to be used from the comfort of her own home.
I liked your “initial reaction” vs. “upon reflection” view 🙂
Thank you for the article
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I read the post on your blog. I agree with you on the weight issue, or non-issue. Nothing about the ad implied that the husband wanted the wife to lose weight, or that weight was a consideration at all. That was just a convenient fiction dreamed up out of nowhere to attack the ad. Equally silly was the suggestion that a husband’s buying a wife a piece of exercise equipment is somehow inappropriate or demeaning in and of itself (as in the Eva Victor spoof below). It’s not that outlandish to imagine that the wife just wanted the bike (or a bike). If anything, the ad managed to shame me into buying my wife the Fitbit she’s wanted since her birthday (in September)–for the daunting price of $70 on Amazon. So there’s a happy ending here. Meanwhile, she’s off swimming.
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And all because of a sexist Peloton commercial. Let me go buy some of that stock.
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Why all the fussing about the Peleton commercial?
Because an actress plays the role of a woman who other women presume wants to please her husband, and shows admiration and respect to him. She defers to him. I’m not sure Peleton’s ad agency did this deliberately – I think maybe not since they re-released the commercial without the “husband” in the shot, but all this did was serve to further the outrage by trying to downplay it.
Also it’s kind of a dumb commercial besides that
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The fussing about the ad is overwrought, but no one here has expressed any great outrage. I’ve been the most critical of it, but it’s a stretch to describe my tone as outraged.
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In the meantime, Ryan Reynolds has capitalized on the Peloton ad (for his gin company):
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As practical person, I think he should have bought her one of those running strollers and told her to get out in the fresh air with her daughter. Then they both have fun. My goodness, these millennials they portray are looking spoiled with their selfies and Pelotons. Taking care of a child is exercise enough plus the actress they chose was skinny. Dumb. Most ads are annoying IMO. The ad writers don’t live in the real world.
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Not sure I buy this, but it’s a clever way of handling the controversy:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/business/peloton-woman-monica-ruiz-today-trnd/index.html
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Yeah, it wasn’t all the eyes (or eyebrows), but her expression there (perhaps some over-acting?) really helped fit the overall portrait into some negative stereotypes (at least for me). I like the way she seems to be handling it (according to the article) and hope she succeeds on her merits, not just riffing on worried/neurotic Peloton Woman.
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Agreed, though I’m not sure how much of what she’s saying is cleverness and how much sincerity. As per Team America’s observation, “that’s why they call it acting.”
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By paying so much attention to this commercial, they’re just giving Peloton free PR. I didn’t even know their brand before; now everybody does.
Honestly, my attitude is this: Who the fuck cares?! Not even worth the attention I’m giving it right now.
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And yet…
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P.S. In fact, the only reason it’s worth my attention right now is it’s probably a good stock buy. I am always looking for stupid – – and not so stupid – – controversies that I know will blow over to make a quick buck.
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As an indirect beneficiary of this decision, I can only say: you go, girl. But whatever you do, for God’s sake, don’t invest in Hallmark.
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I do feel a strange compulsion to buy a Peloton…
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