Category: Culture

Chick-fil-A on public relations tightrope after latest Cathy same-sex marriage comments

I cut sheets of black paper into indiscernible blobs, taping them on the canvas of an old white t-shirt. It could have passed for a Rorschach Test until I went in search of a bovine mask and a bell to bind around my neck.

I dressed up as a cow last week for a chicken sandwich combo meal. What would you do for free food?

Courtesy Chick-fil-A.

Cow Appreciation Day is just part of Chick-fil-A’s charm. The fast food restaurant feels like anything but. The dining rooms are clean, the service is done with “pleasure,” and chances are, you’re going to get a free taste of something if you stick around long enough.

Of course, if you don’t have a stack of readily available coupons, Chick-fil-A ain’t exactly the value menu. It’s pricey fast food, but its customers gladly pay the premium in exchange for the culture.

The Chick-fil-A culture is closely intertwined with the Christian faith. Its founder, S. Truett Cathy, is a publicly professing Christian and through the success of his restaurant chain began a number of Christian missions under the umbrella of the WinShape Foundation. It’s not uncommon to hear Christian music playing in the restaurants and, perhaps most famously, you can’t go to Chick-fil-A after church – they are closed on Sundays.

It’s something Evangelicals can appreciate – no wonder the chain does so well in the Bible Belt – but the friendly service and philanthropic endeavors are enough to appeal to people of most any ethic. Everybody appreciates an upstanding company with strong ties to community. Christians and non-Christians alike can get behind eating more “chikin.”

But lately, the restaurant chain’s leadership has been vocal about a divisive religious issue with political connotations. Namely, Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy has publicly decried same-sex marriage, most recently in a radio interview on the Ken Coleman Show:

I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.

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KONY 2012: Awareness and accuracy; Idealism and cynicism

Joseph Kony is an evil man. But are the people who likely made you aware of him in the first place even worse? Over the course of just a few days, the world responded to the message of Invisible Children’s short film, Kony 2012, then shot the very messenger that brought them the news. And by the end of it all, at least one man was naked on a street corner.

It was a unique event.

The video itself was the eleventh by Invisible Children, and even in its short lifespan, the most effective. As of the writing of this post – three weeks after the video’s release – Kony 2012 had been viewed over 100 million times on YouTube and Vimeo. MSNBC wrote in greater detail about how the video went viral, while the Chronicle of Philanthropy provided a more philosophical, yet briefer account.

So, Kony 2012 was achieving its goal – to make Joseph Kony famous. There is no denying that the world is now more aware of the man than before the campaign. However, in the process of making Kony famous, Invisible Children too became noteworthy, and when one attracts a certain amount of attention, it is only a matter of time before a critical lens is applied.

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Steve Jobs, 1955-2011: The Creator of the Apple Culture

Steve Jobs died today. Pancreatic cancer. 56.

He stepped down as CEO of Apple, the once-thriving, then-fledgling, then-thriving-beyond-the-wildest-dreams-of-any-tech-company-in-history, little more than one month ago. We knew it was his health. We still didn’t think it would be this soon.

The Internet is reeling tonight. Twitter crashed. Every site you visit seems to have some sort of memorial. Apple’s site displays only the image above.

We lost a visionary, without a doubt. One of the great minds of our times.

For Apple-ites, it’s more. Today, they lost the leader of a subculture.

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Teaching September 11

One of my senior-level seminar courses took a break from our normal lecture schedule last week to look back at the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and their impact on journalism, culture, and diplomacy in the United States and abroad. I titled the series, “Effects of 9/11 – 10 Years Later,” and opened it to students across the campus.

With the immense anniversary coverage being prepared for the weekend ahead, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to look back (For more on the extent of the coverage, see Paul Farhi’s piece in the Washington Post). The idea gained steam with the launch of the new Understanding 9/11 page from the Internet Archive, a massive collection of television coverage from the original Sept. 11, 2001 broadcasts of major news networks around the world.

I arranged the lectures around clips from the archive and other corners of the Internet. I was quite pleased with the discussions that took place. My colleagues and I wondered if the students – most of them 10-11 years old when the attacks occurred – would have the same memories of that day as we do. As it turned out, the associations were still strong, and sparked some great debate.

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The biggest 7%-off sale in history: Why are sales tax holidays such a draw?

At 12:01 a.m., Mississippi’s sales tax holiday weekend officially began. It is one of the most restrictive in the country, covering only “Clothing and footwear items, meant to be worn next to the body and cost[ing] less than $100 per item,” according to the Department of Revenue press release. Touted as a back-to-school savings event, it doesn’t cover backpacks or school supplies of any kind. And if your child participates in athletics, sportswear doesn’t count either, despite it’s closeness to the body.

Still, your favorite shopping destination in the Magnolia State will likely be packed this weekend, as families look to save on blue jeans, t-shirts, socks and the like (unless they have a Nike swoosh on them, I suppose).

Why?

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