Gay consumers love Apple, but hate Samsung for some reason
In today's consumerist age, it's important, when buying a gadget or gewgaw, to be one hundred percent certain that its manufacturer applauds your choice of whichever gooey orifice you might find yourself drawn towards plunging. So in a recent survey by Prime Access, 757 gays and lesbians were asked to rank companies by their perceived gay-friendliness.
The gay-friendliest companies aren't surprising. Companies that strongly pursue the metrosexual demographic come out tops: Apple is, not shockingly, considered the most gay friendly tech company out there. Starbucks, Bravo, Absolut, Baccardi and Levi's are also in the top 13.
It's the bottom half of the list that's strange. The least gay friendly tech company, according to the study? Samsung. The least gay friendly company overall? Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel fired a number of employees in the 90s solely for being gay, but in 2003, they changed their tune, instituting an anti-gay discrimination policy. The gay community remembers these things for a long time... as they should. Speaking with your dollars is the only real way to be heard.
But Samsung? Google turns up no mention of Samsung sponsored, anti-gay pogroms. I am very willing to condemn Samsung's anti-gay agenda — it's ludicrous that any firm would harbor an anti-gay policy in 2008 — but I can't find anything on it. Yet something must be there: the Cracker Barrel placement indicates that gay consumers have elephant-like memories when it comes to a company's history. So what did Samsung do to stir up the ire of our nation's Rainbow Legionnaires?
Highlights of the 2008 Gay and Lesbian Consumer Study [Prime Access via Gizmodo]
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http://www.yhchang.com/SAMSUNG_MEANS_TO_COME.html
uhhh, yeah
Maybe it's just those awful "imagine" TV ads. Banality like that means that they deserve to be at the bottom of every demographic's friendliness list.
I quite like their monitors, though.
This is obviously because Samsung is strictly heterosexual.
@1: That 'samsung means to come' thing is great! thanks for sharing (does anyone know the name of the music on there?)
Holy Holy! #1. yhchang is so great. you are so great. Now we can all know how great yhchang is. Too bad we're stuffed in this little discussion section. maybe no one will know how great she is.
@3: The tune on 'Samsung Means to Come' is called 'Caravan', originally done by Duke Ellington. I'm not sure who's playing that particular version.
And... Samsung? I would have thought it would be Hitachi.
I imagine that the results of this survey probably map pretty closely to the results of the Human Rights Campaign's most recent Corporate Equality Index (http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplace/cei.htm).
I note that Samsung isn't listed on the CEI, so I suppose that this could be something similar to the way that Nintendo was rated so low on the recent Greenpeace report (i.e., "insufficient data" somehow justifies a poor rating, rather than exclusion from the list or a simple statement of fact).
I also like Samsung monitors, but in general the company doesn't seem that friendly to anybody in particular.
I liked those hunky Samsung microwave ads in the 90's myself. I mean ya wanna talk about gay...
http://www.stargatecinema.com/files/cache/443e6d8f71e5e10d4f1c2d6265cc90da.jpg
can someone explain "Samsung means to come" to me? was there ever an ad campaign with that slogan? is that a bad Engrish translation?
Wonder if this will end up like those urban legends that the Snapple shows a Black man being lynched or some other lunacy. Identity politics suck.
mmm the gay community could be playing an exceptionally long game of "we dont like what you did"
After all Samsung made equipment for Nazi concentration camps during WWII
omg Goodwins law, yeah I know but its all i can think of
Other than that........ Fujitsu (one of Siemens business partners) were really really unhelpful when I applied for an industrial placement so maybe they both have similar attitudes
No wonder a Cupertino, San Francisco, based company is gay friendly. If Steve Jobs still had hair he would put flowers on them, just to please Scott McKenzie.
Wozniack actually has flowers in his hair, but they're stuck in there from the last time he crumbled down the Segway during a Polo match.