The M&Ms are not Hot Anymore: Somehow, a serious video about the evils of colonialism.
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
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Fascism and its secret best pal, Colonialism | Chill Goblin
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I'm a middle school teacher and we were reading the UN Declaration of Human Rights the other day. Kids genuinely asked me why did one of the chapters prohibit slavery if it ended a hundred years ago, obviously there are no slaves today. And I laughed a bitter, bitter laugh. And when after class I went to the teacher's room to complain, it turned out most of my colleagues thought the same. Now excuse me while I go bang my head against the whiteboard.
You're a good teacher. I'm sorry for the way society mistreats your profession.
There are more people in slavery right this minute than there ever where at any given moment during what we think of the time slavery was still a thing.
Well, I'd suggest you make your next lesson about slavery today. Maybe leave out sex trafficking, unless they're old enough for that.
I hope you end up teaching them about it, if you haven’t already done so.
@@MammaApa really? :-(
4:19 "Imagine a world with less judgment" read: stop judging us for profiting off child slave labor.
Exactly what I was thinking when I heard that line.
It should say "Imagine a world with EVEN less judgment".
Don't chumps like Thought Slime vomit that same spiel?
@@SirBlackReeds Are you saying Thought Slime expressed that sentiment at some point?
Gottem
I think it's important to stress how being more oppressed in one area actually INCREASES your likelihood of contributing to oppression -- something particularly screwed about our system. Like, when we were living in a hella rural area where the only place to buy affordable clothing was the WalMart 45 minutes away, my Mom shopped at WalMart. It was that or send her four kids to school naked and without any school supplies. She did not have the money to spend elsewhere (or drive the 2-3 hours to a location where we MIGHT have found equally cheap options). Now that she's in a more economically secure place (not rich, by any means, but not in poverty) she tries to buy products that are more ethical, and is more selective about where she shops. But that's an economic privilege she never had before. Likewise, I'm disabled. Because the US government thinks disabled people can exist on only $600/month, I'm dependent on my family. Thankfully, my mom is able to work as my caregiver. If she didn't, I'd be entirely dependent on caregivers paid through a government program (IHSS) -- and they pay FAR below a living wage in this area. So many disabled people are in a horrible ethical position where they end up participating in the exploitation of service workers (largely marginalized themselves) in order to survive. It's FUCKED.
Capitalism is basically "Bum Fights" on an international scale.
Using walmart = evil ???
Being ethical is a luxury in our society, which tells you all about how fucked up we are.
Just a question, what's life like for a disabledperson in America? I've heard a lot of things, some good, some bad, but the only firsthand description I got was from a roomate with fainting spells (he could walk, but he'd stay in a wheelchair most of the time because he could just tip over and fall on his face without warning) who couldn't get full pay in most jobs, so he became a freelance programmer.
@@thermophile1695There are some protections. It's, like, better than being disabled in, I don't know, Victorian London or something. But, honestly, it sucks.
1) You can be paid sub-minimum wage. Companies are allowed to employ you based on the idea that you are not a full human, and therefore they can only pay you for the percentage of person you are. If, for example, your friend can work for 6 hours a day while most people can work for eight, then even if he accomplishes the same amount of work, the company is free to pay him only 75% of the pay.
2) You cannot possess more than $1500 in combined assets or you will be considered to no longer be disabled. If, for example, I sell my vintage fountain pen collection for $600, and on the same day, I find on the ground a scratch ticket which wins me $1,000, then I will no longer qualify for benefits. If I do not report that I am no longer disabled to the government in time, I may be fined or arrested for this. I will also no longer qualify for benefits even if I am disabled at that point, and (because of the fine) now have no money.
3) You must have multiple certificates from doctors and similar to say you are disabled. You must pay the doctors hundreds of dollars for these certificates. You must therefore find a way to earn the money to see the doctors. If you find a way to earn that money while having a disability, you are no longer disabled.
4) The Americans with Disabilities Act does make some good concessions. However, it is not easily or commonly enforced, and so you may be unable to actually take advantage of those concessions. Furthermore, if your disability need is unusual and therefore not covered by default (buildings being wheelchair accessible, for example) you need to get doctors to certify it.
5) The ADA also has exceptions, because of the status of 'Reasonable' acommodations. I live in a condominium unit (like an apartment that you own) that is in a converted school originally built a hundred years ago. For structural reasons, my apartment cannot be wheelchair accessible. If I lost the ability to walk, I could not get into or out of my apartment. It is quite possible (as the phrasing is interpreted differently) that the ADA "Reasonable Accommodation" could be interpreted as meaning, say, the condo association paying realty fees to assist me in selling my apartment so I could afford to live somewhere else. If I did this, I would now have more than $1500, and therefore no longer be disabled.
The fact that the chocolate industry uses slave labor to produce coco is an open secret and I wish more people talked about it.
People talk about it all the time.
i wish you people would help me DO MORE ABOUT IT.
Same goes for the coffee industry. I hope that this lawsuit leads to reperations for those enslaved, and helps crack down on other companies relying on slave labor.
@@bigsiskrishere Like the electronics industry. and mineral extraction. and straight up home servitude in Libya. The "biblical" type.
@@refundreplay This is probably a matter of what social circles we participate in. Personally no one I know talks about it, I have only seen it discussed online recently as a result of this recent stunt that Mars pulled, and out of all my friends I am the only one that talks about it and seems to know it is a thing. But I get what you were trying to say. Talk is nothing without ACTION to go with it. That is a point worth remembering.
@@galactic85 ✊
Kinda weird how no one started talking about this child labor case until the M&Ms redesign.
It's like the inverse of what usually happens with publicity stunts.
Right? When I actually heard about slavery lawsuit, I was a little bit confused, because I forgot about the case.
Thanks the M&M memes for reminding me.
The Streisand Effect in action
I think it's bc that wasn't really the goal. They were being sued for a while. They wanted a publicity boost, not to hide their awful crimes, since they knew people weren't looking anyways.
It’s funny because some of us were just like “oh, M&M is getting into culture war bullshit, they must be hiding something” and looked into what they did that they might want to hide.
I recall hearing about it very briefly before the propaganda campaign launched. The lawsuit has definitely picked up more in leftist circles, but the liberals(as in not actively anticapitalist) at work were all talking about the redesign until I pointed out the child slavery lawsuit.
It is really nasty when companies have a team of employees go through "legal risk" propaganda classes. Legal risk translates into a cold calculation of the fines a company will get for breaking a law compared to the profits a company will likely get from breaking the law.
A fine only makes something illegal for the poor.
Corporations have the ability to commit as many crimes as they can pay for.
This is literally the job the narrator in Fight Club describes on that plane in the beginning
ie. the cost of doing business.
Really seems like the fine for certain crimes a company might commit should be "all of the money you have".
@@eclipserepeater2466 Indeed.
It’s “Vote with your dollar” when I feel like moralizing at someone, and it’s “There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” when it affects me personally.
You can't vote with your Dollar. If you want change, burn something down.
Voting with your dollar is all but impossible when just about everything is owned by the same 3 or 4 companies.
(i.e. Unilever, Mondelez, Mars, Nestle)
Companies always outvote the people
Cause they got more dollars to vote with
@@TheSorrel Fire burns everyone... I would argue it's more justifiable to prevent their products from making retailers money (i.e. destruction or theft), from continuing to buy a product they lose money stocking, thus not stocking them will save money and the exploitative company wont get more money for their exploitation.
@Novem's Natural Roll yea except Walmarts are oftentimes in poorer areas and often are their only access to decent produce and groceries. You burn down a Walmart, there are impacts on the people in that area. Walmart may decide not to rebuild in that same area as well. It’s wealthier areas that are able to support a wide array of locally owned businesses unfortunately. The poorer areas will shop at stores that are more affordable and that can undercut the prices that locally owned businesses are able to provide.
There was a reality show where they took some rich kids from western europe and flew them to Africa, where they met workers who produced shit for big companies and made like, a buck a day, and had them follow their day-to-day life. Of course, this was meant for them to learn to “empathise with them” and “do not take things for granted”. And the viewers are also obviously meant to feel the same. A teacher showed an episode of this to my class in middle-school, probably for similar reasons. It definitely had a “stop complaining, your life is not as shitty as this” undertone but that’s irrelevant. And of course, the pre-teen that I was did not think about asking why we allowed this to happen in the first place.
It’s crazy how normalized this system is, because it started long before we were born, but simultaneously we’re taught to give thoughts and prayers and shut up and be grateful.
The "don't complain" undertone is always the point of stuff like that. You're not supposed to question why big businesses do such things or are even in such a position of power. Just be grateful you're not the one who has to suffer the most under the system.
Its to protect the established hierarchies. To get you to not look at the bigger picture & question or challenge the state of things. Just focus on your own individual experience and never complain because "it could always be worse".
And its a very old idea too. Under feudalism, peasants would be told to be grateful to the King that there is even land to toil. Were it not for the king, there would be nothing. No stability or order.
Slaves brought to the US would be told, they should be happy to work under the white man. Happy they were taken out of savagery.
Those in power will always fabricate all sorts of reasons to justify their positions in a hierarchical structure that inherently creates economic & social tension.
As my favorite(sarcasm) Christmas song says: "Thank God it's THEM instead of YOU!" Fucking classic.
@@babyface3396 what a nightmare song
I think I've actually seen this. They had to dig the holes for the cocoa trees with sticks as bonus work at one point and at the end of the day they pooled their money for simple foods like potatoes and bananas. It's on youtube but I don't remember the name. It might of been on only human? Interesting watch for sure.
I actually stole the green m&m’s hotness as punishment for their crimes against humanity, and the brown m&m is next.
You're doing the Lord's work.
I didn't see any stealing.
Too powerful
Emily will take over the universe.
@@TheGerkuman In a adequate way !
I had to be "that guy" in like all of my friend circles about the M&M thing. "This is all good fun with the memes guys, but Mars using child slave labor to harvest cocoa to create M&Ms isn't fun at all."
Keep being "that guy" and let those who be mad stay mad.
If knowing a truth means they can't have fun, so be it. That's their problem. I'll never understand weak-willed people who can't handle a dose of reality without getting angry and pouting.
@@jkclark5204 based
@@jkclark5204 you are absolutely correct.
"Sure, slavery... but also, chocolatey goodness!" -M&M's
In Zapp Brannigan's voice
Chocolate is probably one of the rare areas where I can feel somewhat happy about living in India ... The largest dairy producer in India is a worker co-op which sources cocoa from another domestic co-op farming operation to make chocolate bars ... The point is that we have a mainstream choice for ethical consumption of chocolates (ignoring of course, animal cruelty)
Honestly wish I could just order chocolate from India now
if you are talking about Amul then I am sad to tell you that they aren't all good either
@@KeithieB Nothing is perfect brother
If you think about it, this makes Mars like Willy Wonka in the worst way.
Well, to be honest,Wonka may not have enslaved any kids, but I didn't see any indication the Oompa Loompas were getting paid or had basic rights. Also, the kids didn't exactly meet a good end. 😅
@@onelessthing The Oompa Loompas were talked into moving in to Wonka's factory because they were not the apex predator where they originally lived. Wonka chose to pursue them because he knew he could get them to do the work without worrying about corporate data leakage issues. Wonka gave them a comfortable place to live free from being eaten alive, plenty of food, and at least some form of clothing arrangement. So, we'll call them the Irish of the forced labor movement. Not saying they were the best-treated, but they did get some benefits others did not.
Oompa Loompa doopity doo,
using child slavery is very bad to do,
what do you get when you ignore their plights?
focus on the profits and ignore human rights,
pesky journalists expose your blights,
consumers still eat the candy all days and nights
oompa loompa doopity doo,
boycott this corporate crap or the kids are still screwed
@@lysanamcmillan7972 Tom Nook???
Came here to make fun of Tucker's cartoon foot fetish, stayed for the horrors of corporate oppression.
Wow these kids got to make m&ms all day. Basically summer camp. So oppressed. Why just because they had to harvest coco instead of go to school? Should they have gotten hugs from their mommy? This the real world lib, not sunshine rainbow land. Either you're the predator or you're the Aquaman.
@@justcommenting4981
I'm sure you would've preferred the former.
@@justcommenting4981 :| you can’t be serious.
@@justcommenting4981 I've got an underwater house to sell you
@@justcommenting4981 I'm 90% sure this is sarcasm
Corporations should be liable for everything that happens in their supply chains. The “it was a contractor” BS shouldn’t be a defense, they’re profiting off of them.
German ministers for work and development aid wanted to put that into law. It obviously got blocked by Merkel and the minister for economic affairs.
@@rolfs2165 the US is so pro corporate I can't see this happening unfortunately, even though it would be the objectively right thing to do
I don't think I agree. Like, if they themselves are practicing slavery then that's one thing but if they're just buying raw ingredients from some farm that offered good rates and didn't look into it any more than that, isn't that just the same as everyone that bought M&Ms without discovering there was slavery involved? They have been around for decades and yet we're only discovering this 10 years in?
Why punish the company that's not directly involved with it when there is a directly responsible party right there to punish? Has anyone sent soldiers to these farms to arrest/execute the slavers? If not... why?
I think it's some bullshit that countries like America will sue their local companies over outsourcing to farms that have child slavery, then not do anything about the actual farms. Those farms just get to keep running and find other buyers. Maybe set up a fake front business and then continue supplying the same companies, just with an extra step in the middle to throw people off.
What's the local African government doing to combat these practices? Do they endorse it because their country is a shithole and needs all the scraps it can get from the tables of giant corporations? Have they taken the above measures of sending in police/military to punish the slavers and reform the working practices of the coco farms?
Who's really playing PR when countries are punishing only what they have jurisdiction over? Just ruin Mars and move on. No need to actually deal with the root of the problem, right? As long as the public think we've done something to combat the situation, even if we only used a scapegoat, then it's all good.
I genuinely can't find a thing on google about the slavers being punished. It's all just about this lawsuit, which is completely missing the point.
@@duskmare0000 because they're profiting off of the abuse and suffering of children, which allows it to go on. If you held them liable they would have to either drastically change how things are done or go somewhere else. If these people who are enslaving the children aren't making money there is no point to have child slaves. Attack the problem and the problem is the profit motive behind this child slavery. I mean of we go in guns blazing it's likely more children would die than have to. Maybe they could be incentivized to just buy the slave holders out and take over the operation themselves (or have it nationalized) but I believe this is a form of economic sanctions that would cause the least amount of suffering
@@duskmare0000 also it's not just the chocolate industry, the clothing industry uses child sweatshop labor too. This could be a way to clean up supply lines
FUCK YEAH. Someone finally said it. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but there are a lot of better and worse ways to get what you need. I see that phrase thrown around so often to be like "well fuck it", but just because we can't ultimately escape these issues without large systemic change doesn't mean we can't put pressure on these systems by refusing to support the worst practices within them. Also even a little bit of consideration can still save more lives and do more good then no consideration at all.
Capitalism is the best way when it comes to obtaining goods. Anything Marxists ends with people pointing a gun to your head, demanding you give them what they want, or they kill you, or they just kill you. Lots of American corporations are pro-marixst, and lots have all but been publicly nationalized like what happens in Communist countries.
@@lancer737 there's more options than Marxism and Capitalism, chief. I'd be interested to know which corporations you think are marxist, though.
@@theodorexenophon7612 Any corporation currently, right now, that has followed this governments mandates to the letter are acting just like nationalized Corporation you'd find is Communist countries, theirs way tomany to name, because they are not all giant well known corporations, they also prefer to do labor work business with Communist countries and willingly compromise non-Communist countries they are from by freely given away software access keys of their own clients, even from different countries. Big Corporations that have been caught doing this are Apple, Microsoft, and I think Spirnt, for some reason Android phones no matter the country are linked to give data to the Chinese equivalent main banks.
@@lancer737 You mean, the way M&M Mars has people point guns at children and demand they give them what they want (work in the cocoa fields without pay) or kill them, as is happening right now under Capitalism?
@@lancer737 Well, I'm in Brazil, we are capitalist and that's hapenning here, often, if it's not gun, it's a knife.
Inequality causes that, so any unequal system will have the same results.
Also, which corporations are pro Marxism or want to be nationalized? It's more like the opposite, they want to be free of governments and regulations.
NO
Having sex with the green M&M is not vegan, Mildred.
If she consents it is
women come from Venus
men and M&Ms come from MARS
🤷
@@olivermutalemumba2913 get out
Indeed. Now, whipping your partner with a whip made of Twizzlers, on the other hand...
It's not vegan because she supports child slavery
I can relate to the new brown M&M though. I am also brown, a fan of low/no heels, and wish to be totally androgynous and deeply unappealing to Tucker.
(Ok. Got my specific joke out of my system, back to the child slavery.)
It’s a pretty good joke.
Those pesky wokes: Child Slavery is bad.
Multi-billion chocolate corporation: Can we just, like, have a world with less judgement? K, thx.
"Non-binary people are sexier than everyone else". Yes, you are correct, good slime person.
I’m comforted by the fact that the m&m people aren’t just regular humans inside shells of m&m because that’s just a horrifying thought
I’m discomforted by child slavery
More horrifying than the reality that they are actually just the shells of regular humans?
same lol
You can't really parody reality anymore. All you have to do is compare a company's branded messages with the reality of the company's production chain.
you really can just show two headlines next to each other and. that's it. that's the parody.
@@chillzedd8179 Obfuscation: he didn't wanna talk about child slavery; too anti-corporate.
@@chillzedd8179 Or, could it be Tucker is meant to be right wing satire? (I mean satire for the right wing, not about the right wing). He's not really upset that M&Ms are less fuckable but it gives a laugh out of FOX "News" watchers.
@@QuintarFarenor oh god i think you cracked the code
Reality has become South Park now.
'Mars needed to distract from a child slavery lawsuit so they changed an MnM's shoes and this made a Fox News anchor rant about how he couldn't sleep with cartoon representations of sweets' is the proof I needed that our reality is being written by one of the Riverdale writers filling out a set of mad libs.
The phrase "neoliberalism represents the absolutely mastery of indirect systemic human violence" seems to echo in my mind when hearing about these topics.
"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" isn't an excuse for me.
It's a madness mantra as I do what I have to do in order to survive. It's simultaneously a mantra of hope and despair. Hope that such will no longer be the case at some point; despair that it's true now. I choose where I can, but where I can't, I complain about the fact that I have no choice.
Yeah, I get it. I just...Look, I just don't have the energy, physically, mentally, anything to try.
Wait, isn't this like a big argument for not using illegal substances? That buying them means funding inhuman practices... turns out, that wasn't illegal substances doing that, it was capitalism..
I'm impressed with my brother he knew it was a distraction and didn't know what it was distracting from. Once again great content
He's smart! I think I'll recognize this kind of tactics from the corporations from now on too. Hopefully.
You'll never go broke by asking why a company is doing something. I'm sure sometimes it might be for a genuinely good thing, but if that's the case it's probably because they were forced to.
Its also interesting that only the female coded candies are being sexualized.
Yellow M&M is a himbo
Are you denying the raw animal magnetism of the blue m&m?
@@ThatOneGuy0006 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
@@ThatOneGuy0006 he plays the sax, he's practically idris elba
There’s also the unspoken angle that all the female candies are femme-coded, whereas all the male candies are presented pretty gender-neutrally.
Thanks for the eyeballs! I saw my sub count rocketing up and was like “what happened???”
A few years off on that Matthew Perry dedication there, Mildo.
"Imagine a world with less judgment." Well, then, let's work toward that world by having less collective sins in need of judging, maybe?
A minor correction probably not worth getting bent out of shape about: in 1986, the Ivorian government officially declared that the name of the country would be "Côte D'Ivoire" in all languages, rather than a translation of the name in those languages. This declaration isn't really respected often in English-speaking spheres, but it seems like something y'all might care about.
Wow 1986? I've only heard anglophones start using the correct name in the last few years so I assumed it was a relatively recent thing... Fuck
I don't think it's just the english speaking sphere, translating countries name is common in most languages I know of, and people aren't used to exceptions... In the case of portuguese it's even worse since Costa do Marfim was one of the original name, since the region was first exploited by both Portuguese and French...
This seems really weird to me? I don't know of any country name that doesn't get translated and I can't see how it would offensive. Here in Sweden there was an announcement made a couple of years ago that Belarus would officially be called "Belarus" instead of "Vitryssland"(White Russia) because the name had been mistranslated and more importantly, the mistranslation implied it wasn't an independent nation so I understand why that change was made. Why would it be bad to say Ivory Coast instead of Côte d'Ivoire?
As far as I'm aware, it isn't actually necessary to understand why something would be "offensive" or "not preferred" in order to comprehend that a preference exists.
@@brodyjohnstancliff4822 Oh yeah totally! It costs nothing to be nice and listen to people's requests, I just like understanding the reasoning behind it
As an economist, most of us are basically sociologists that focus on money. We also hate the ones that try to defend slavery
Most economists I've met are more concerned about the rules of the game and how to perform "well" (well in the numbers game, not nescessarily in QoL for the average people) in the current system than the consequence of the system or how we could change it.
They're all pretty much like that guy that said that poor countries shouldn't increase wages otherwise companies will just move to the next country. Sure, that is true, and the consequence of that is a perpetuation of colonialism, exploitation and misery... Most economists I know are against minimum wage laws and labor rights since that "makes us less competitive".
But maybe that's just here.
"most of us" being, what, your academic friend group? Maybe even the technical majority of researchers currently in the field?
What's taught in economics classes is the Milton Friedman ghoulishness and even in the philosophy of economics class I TAed, almost no students were able to understand criticism of that ideology because even when the inherent contradictions are shoved in the students' faces, they still have no other framework for understanding the situation and just say "okay but corporations have a bottom line."
Economics as a field is a fucking disaster, and there being people in it, even if it's "most of you," who are not Friedman enthusiasts doesn't mitigate that. If the entire field doesn't entirely restructure how it functions and, crucially, how it's taught, then it as a whole keeps contributing to this hellscape.
We need more corporate takedowns of the greed that is this current, economic system. I don't care about the green M&M's clothing choice rather than the corrupt company that makes such frivolity popular.
M&M says child slavery is fun.
I'm planning to make a video about the cocoa/child slavery case, too; I think it's especially timely with Valentine's Day coming up.
I wish more people knew about the slave labor that the chocolate industry is built upon. Since I found out I eat fair trade marked chocolate and usually buy from a brand called "Tony's chocolonely" which is marketed as being slave labor free.
Nothing says I love you, like a box of slavery.
@@galactic85 Food Empowerment Project maintains an annually updated list of chocolate companies that don't use slave labor and make vegan chocolate (they also have lists of companies they don't recommend and companies with whom they're working on addressing their ethical issues).
4:20 Not to mention, this whole situation shows off the emptiness of "less judgement" as a value, because there's a big difference between "not judging people on their skin color/ethnicity/religion/etc", and "not judging a company for subcontracting slave labor".
I mean... we should be judging people for their religion or beliefs tho. (Cough cough Catholics cough)
@@heathercalun4919 I: Well, not for the beliefs themselves but the beliefs´ implications, rather. I mean, not to judge catholics for their belief in a "one and only, almighty" God, but more so for telling us how "merciful" and "just" and "righteous" and "all-loving" he is, when the bible is filled to the brim with instances of him being the exact opposite.
@@iamnohere I’m fine with people saying, “I won’t do that because if my religion.” I’m NOT fine with, “You won’t do that because of my religion.”
You have your beliefs I have mine…
@@Soodlenoup3781 I: Indeed, that´s a great point.
I was so pleased with your use of melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Bravo for not only covering the important story, but also for your brilliant comedic phrasing.
"We upend the expected"
Unfortunately, yeah. I would after all expect, at the absolute most, *0* child slaves.
Good ol’ John Brown of Lawrence, KS from that “any means necessary bit”
One of the few things to be proud of Kansas about
Man this is Thought Slime at their finest. I love seeing videos like these.
This is why I am EXTREMELY choosy about my chocolate. I love chocolate, so I will gladly take the increased prices.
Yep! Lots of small chocolatiers near me source ethical chocolate, and they also use better quality ingredients so it tastes way better than what's on the grocery store shelf. Who knew that conscious purchases could be so delicious?
And the taste difference doesn’t take long to get over.
@@seazenbones6945 I mean it's usually a huge improvement in taste, with the only exception being if you are attached to that particular acidic taste Hershey's gets from the cooking process
The main problem is that ethically sourced chocolate is getting rare for food desserts and the prevalence of brand name chocolates in many kinds of stores and venters. We need to break down this web of systemic issues to stop slavery and save the world along the way.
@@DavidRamirez-se2yt And also it's expensive. ~Red
To fall into the MM trap: didn`t tucker carlson complain about gays in comics a few months ago? And that it was bad that comics are sexualising children or something? Now its a different tune it seems.
The fact that Tucker talks about this inane crap instead of the actual human rights violations it's thinly covering up shows what a waste of TV time he is.
It's like, Tucker, do you wanna talk about the slavery that Mars is trying to distract you from with an empty wokeness performance? Tucker, do you wanna be an actual fucking journalist for once, instead of a gormless manchild playing Goebbels?
I'd say it's a pretty effective use of TV time, actually. It does a lot of work to distract people from the horrors going on and get them riled up about nonsense that gets them to accidentally perpetuate them. That's the TV time being used how it's intended, not wasted.
I used to buy a chocolate bar that was distinctly made without slave labor... until it stopped being sold where I live. Hell, it was good chocolate too.
We just want to eat some chocolate without anybody being enslaved, why is this apparently such a huge ask??
@@nathaniellindner313 Profits trump everything. That being said, I still buy a slave-free chocolate bar, it's just not advertised big on the front.
I see the words "word salad of nonsense" next to a face of JP and wish I could press that link.
Nice haircut Mildred! Also love the take about the "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing. I'm really into fashion and stuff and I feel like I'm not in any fashion communities anymore bc they always use that line to justify why they spend hundreds of dollars on Shein hauls even though it's cheap crap that will fall apart after a few wears, made by people who make maybe $1 per day. They put out new shit every week to follow micro trends and basically pump a bunch of textiles into landfills, mostly in the global south.
Also hate how much it works when corps put out this PR nonsense that whirls us into brain dead culture wars. I haven't seen anyone talking about the child slavery, but everyone is talking about Tucker Carlson wanting to fuck the m&m. And like all my friends and people I follow are leftists.
Anyway I hope this comment sufficiently fed grumbletum
Am I crazy, but the new designs aren't even drastic. If they're trying to go for inclusion, they really didn't do anything but change some shoes. If they made no announcement, people wouldn't know. Wild times, bad chocolate.
I’ve been seeing a lot about how this was a PR campaign to distract from the situation in the ivory coast, but hadn’t put together that the discussion itself about the M&Ms was the ploy. i was lost trying to figure out why desexyifying the M&Ms was a good solution. Thank you for pointing out that it’s the ridiculousness of the conversation that was the move, really illuminating!
Colonialism makes people of the colonizing state so detached from human rights issues. Many people are concerned about the potential higher prices of chocolate, a product they can definitely live without, if companies are required to make it ethically. If we can't figure out a moral dilemma as simple as "should I buy slave chocolate?" then we have a long way to go.
People actually think that cartoon candy people are "sexy"? There truly is no hope for this world.
It's not something I'm going to kink shame anyone about.
@@vxicepickxv I'll say it: I don't want people who are attracted to candy anywhere near my stash
Yeah, that's the bigger problem.
M&M has been trying to get people to want to fuck their candy for decades, most of these poor fools have been exposed to "Green M&M sexy" propoganda since they were literal children and never stopped to question it
Yeah you know, I always thought these marketing strategies were supposed to be "funny" and the joke was misogyny, but now I come to realize that they are unironically trying to use the sexiness as marketing. I don't get it.
"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" as an excuse is kinda akin to "Well we're _all_ on the inevitable decline to death anyway" while holding a bloody murder weapon.
Mhm mhm
...you're saying it's bad tho?
@@MrKaneShadow I'm reliably informed that admitting to crimes doesn't make them not crimes, despite what the past couple of years may have suggested to certain sections of the population.
+
It's the same logic as the people who defend not making eco-conscious choices when they have the ability to by saying, "Corporations are responsible for exponentially more waste than individual consumers." That may be true, but it doesn't mean we should be drinking bottled water every day instead of filling up reusable water bottles (assuming you have access to clean drinking water) or buying a brand new phone every year. Companies are influenced by consumer behavior.
@BanquetOfTheLeviathan Exactly, I'm a human living in a capitalist society, so I have to buy things and, by extension, engage in wasteful practices. But I can choose to be conscious about the waste I contribute. Like, I can make a point of always trying to find a used item before buying it brand new.
That way, the harm (ecological or otherwise unethical) has already been done, I'm not giving my money to a corporation, and while eventually that item will end up in a landfill (by me if it's no longer useable or by another person I pass the item on to), it already existed so it would have eventually gone to a landfill anyways.
"Becoming malnourished for the sake of not giving the capitalists any money" is starting to sound more and more tasty
Saying "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" to justify just making the most negligent purchasing decisions is like saying "nobody dies gracefully, so why shouldn't I jump feet-first into a woodchipper?"
I guess my question is, I have a hobby (magic the gathering). How can I really justify that hobby with the exploitation of natural resources like wood for paper, and all the international shipping due to our global economy?
Where *can* I draw the line? Because quite frankly if it's "literally only exactly what you need to sustain your body and nothing else" that kinda honks. How do we differentiate from, say, that rise and grind mentality that we're rightly critical of?
@@thomaswhite3059 the important thing to do is to look for alternatives wherever possible. That means different things for different people (of different incomes living in different areas etc), but it might mean going with chocolates that are fair trade if you can find them, or going with Lindt/Ghirardelli chocolates as opposed to anything made by Mars/Mendelez/Nestle/etc. Or that might mean finding something other than chocolate.
To use the MTG example, it might mean purchasing only from small business hobby stores and not from online (except for peer to peer) or big box stores. It might mean getting cards primarily secondhand. It might mean (if you are so inclined) finding another hobby, and keeping the cards you have.
There *is* no ethical consumption under capitalism, it's just that some purchasing habits are more detrimental than others. Find the route that is the least detrimental, and if something is equally bad across the board, weigh if it's really worth continuing to partake in. No one is perfect at this, mind you, but making an effort is better than making no effort at all.
But I saw it in Hitman and looked fuun
@@kittycatcaoimhe weren't Lindt also guilty of using slave labour a few years back?
The point of the phrase "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" is to serve as a reminder that there's not much you can do on an individual level to right the wrongs of the world and that it's unreasonable to expect that of someone. It's much better to target the corporations themselves.
By all means, do what you can to be as ethical as possible (as long as you have the means to do so). But it's unreasonable to expect individual people to live a joyless existence because it's the morally ethical thing to do.
@@jdprettynails I hadn't heard that of Lindt, but I wouldn't be surprised.
And absolutely, it's about finding alternatives where possible. I'm not advocating for people casting aside all joys and pleasures in life that have ethical issues, because that would precisely lead to a joyless life.
For my partner and I, that has meant not shopping at Walmart or Amazon because we have the ability to do so, and switching from Sodastream to US-based competitors. It's meant shopping local as much as we can. It's meant sourcing my 3D printer filaments and resins as recycled where possible, then bioplastics after that, then virgin petroleum plastics as a last resort. It's meant cancelling Netflix and pirating the exclusive content we wish to continue to have access to.
The point I'm trying to make though, is that "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is not a free pass to pay no mind to what you partake in. You still should be mindful of what options are better or worse, and should still opt for the better options if you are able to.
Much as it's cheesy to relate things to TV shows, The Good Place actually made a fantastic point on this in later seasons. The modern world is so convoluted and rife with problems that no consumption will ever be fully ethical in every way, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try where we can.
I'm glad he said wait. I almost got out my knife to send exactly one eyeball to the e-mail zone.
Unfortunately, Matthew Perry didn't make it to 2035...
11:50 "The fact that nothing you buy is free of exploitation doesn't lift the moral burden on you to decrease that exploitation."
Yes I know it's a distraction, but can we at least entertain the thought of Tucker subbing to a brown M&M dominatrix?
No
The whole right wing culture war drama over barely changed cartoon candy design was so obviously a smoke screen that it made me go out and find the controversy they were covering up, and thus made me aware of the lawsuit that i hadn't previously been aware of.
It's the Grapes Of Wrath *“Then who DO we shoot?”* scene all over again...
I think the answer might just be anyone with a net worth more than $500k
@@Noname72105 I thought it would be obvious that it was the slavers...
Hey a moment my lived experience is slightly relevant! I used to work for Mars as a college intern. You are 100% correct. The company is so big and broad that there’s no way the people involved with making the new M&Ms see the M&M in the global south beyond the Mars produced articles about how “we’re totes not doing a slavery”. Just wanted to confirm your suspicion.
Ima keep it real with u Nestlé, Cargil, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey and Mondelēz: this won't make ppl forget about the Child Slavery Lawsuit.
the slime: dance, puppet! dance!
me: [in tears, puts on jester outfit and does the little lad dance]
Good on you for recommending not only Angel Davis, but a reading of her work. Too many people don't consider that a good number of people have issues with reading, whether it's available time, conditions that preclude reading, that they don't want to slog through non-fiction, or any other reason.
information pollution is such a nice word for it
"What's a little bit of slavery for some delicious chocolate? C'mon! Valentine's day is coming up!"
- Mars Inc, Hershey's, etc...
As a second class citizen who lives in a colony I approve this video
Once again cruelty is the point.
No, profit is the point.
@@tenmanX profit is the goal, cruelty is the point they prefer to pass on the way.
@@AbMaSync Cruelty presupposes the profiteers gave the victims' condition some thought and decided, Yes. However, these exploited people's circumstances are so far removed from any notice of their real capitalist slavers that they might as well be ant farts on a fallen leaf in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland.
But what is the point of the cruelty and the profit? ~Red
@@tenmanX It just seems a pretty big tendency around the whole system. Workplace abuse, minors slaves, killing of natives to get land (yes, that still happens)
on calling them lentils: lentils is also what the generic m&ms are found. I assume because they're lentil shaped.
I live in a Chicago suburb near the Mars, Inc. plant, and they have their own dedicated stop on the Metra train line. Whenever I take the train into the city, I always keep an eye out for the people riding the line for the first time as they react with confusion when the intercom says, "Next stop: Mars."
buy Tony's Chocolonely, they're on a mission to make chocolate slave free. Not just their chocolate, that's already slave free. They campaign against big chocolate companies continuing to use slavery in their chocolate.
We need John Brown back
*stuffs a canvas bag full of climbing equipment and shoulders a two-handed hammer* Welp, off to the underworld. Who's with me? 🙆🏾♀️💯✨
Holy shit, Mathew Perry is dead?!
- Me rewatching this in 15 years
I need a t shirt that says "Economists DROP DEAD" right now i am NOT joking
I legit never heard about the child slavery situation. like I know about how cocoa is often obtained through exploited labor, but I had heard nothing about this lawsuit.
"Quote transitioned" he spits with such venom like trans people have anything to do with this??? Transion is just a regular word my guy I'm in tears
First Eminem...NOW M&MS??! Where does the madness emin-end????
I appreciate feeling not so alone with these feelings. Thanks for giving voice to these things!
To me ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’ has always meant ‘go ahead and steal stuff.’
Finally
The day I’ve been waiting for
Thought slime dunks on tucker Carlson
I guess Sucker Carlson likes to rub them on his junk. Side note I remember when they start having red M&M again after I guess there was a red dye shortage.
IIRC the red ones were away for a while because the red dye they used at the time was linked to increased chance of cancer.
@@Syurtpiutha thank you👌🏿
@@grapeshot No problem. Only read about this recently myself. Tuckums can go introduce his junk to angry bullet ants.
To be fair I'm kind of preoccupied with keeping a roof over my head in the face of massively increasing rent and housing prices
That's not a bug of neoliberal capitalism, it's a feature.
Precarity reduces your ability to make long-term plans, since you're preoccupied with not dying on the streets of a preventable illness.
@@vxicepickxv yeah the thought has crossed my mind more than one time
@@LexYeen that reminds me: this (and its inverse - that security makes long term planning easier) is exactly why I don’t understand accelerationist arguments, unless they’re all personally secure either way.
I wanted to send this video to my parents but then Mildred started talking about the green m&m and now I'm uncomfortable with my parents thinking that this is what I watch online
rip matthew perry
Pretty sure people in ye olden days sometimes used to try to pretend slavery wasn't slavery, for example by insisting that the subjugation of the enslaved was for their own good and actually they preferred slavery to freedom because bones.
the way you went off about the brown m&m craving true intimacy in a romantic partner made me die for no good reason 💀💀 that pandemic loneliness got me thinking…
POV you're in a Right wingers wet dream
Green M&M : please daddy call me a dirty skittle
Disability products ESPECIALLY piss me off. Almost impossible to tell where my shit is made. I physically NEED these things but can almost never decipher where they're made or how. 😮💨🤦🏼♀️
20:10 one year ago this was only a joke... Now you have become a unfortunate time traveler
That "back in Ye Olden Days" Queen Elizabeth I is my sister at the Southern CA Renaissance Faire!
As a lawyer, I loved practically innocent or innocent adjacent.
The distraction works so well that this is legitimately the first time I'm hearing about the slave labor lawsuit, while I've seen tens of videos talking about the sexiness of candy mascots. And that's genuinely terrifying to me.
Depressing.
As I get older and older I continue to learn more about how horrible humanity is by being educated to yet another atrocity which seems impossible in scope and power to correct.
In Canada we have an unprecedented trucker strike going on right now which took people 3 years of being surrounded by this stuff in their daily lives to build up to...and we still have no clue if it'll amount to anything at all. The governments stance to this is that it reflects a fringe minority.
If that's what it takes to MAYBE create change for something pretty small that every day people can see and understand...how the fuck are we supposed to get people to wake up to (insert a dozen other global issues including the subject of this video)?
He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow
What a weird comment. The trucker strike is just complaining about vaccine mandates?
@@AvalonisHere Correct. Whether or not you agree with the cause it represents a never before seen effort in Canada by the public to create a change.
So my point is if this is what it takes to deal with something like this...how can we expect to deal with far more important issues?
Regarding the trucker thing....its a bit odd to me because in a month or two we'll likely drop mandates naturally regardless just because of what we know about Omicron from South Africa and the actions of other countries in the world recently.
@@rogerbabin8175 I think most people view those protestors as a fringe element of society that is easily motivated. I don't think many would classify them the way that you did; as otherwise normal people experiencing extreme motivation .
Oh no
My "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" excuse that I've been unironically and ignorantly using to excuse my kinda shitty consumption
Is broken
As a trans lady, I couldn't care less about the gender of the fucking mascots. It's a smokescreen. These corporations are rotten, and no amount of 'progressive' advertisement is gonna help with that. I'm gonna stop eating chocolate that isn't certified as free trade from a reliable brand (IE: not MARS, Hershey, etc.)
Additionally:
I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that people like Tucker Carlson are still being harmful. Even if we don't focus on the smokescreen (which we shouldn't!), we should still call bullshit on all the bigots spouting transphobic and sexist language. It's possible to call out MARS for it's colonialism while *also* calling out the fascist influencers on the homefront.
We can't let the pop culture discourse about fictional candy people *distract* us from the human rights abuse being perpetrated by MARS, but we also can't let the fascists go around broadcasting hate without pushback. Life's already hard enough for (in this case) nonbinary people in the USA, they don't need more hate getting thrown their way by these ghouls.
I think the Left often gets caught up in an 'either-or' mentality when fighting oppressions. We feel like we have to choose which battles we fight. In the real, material world, that is true-you have to pick where you want to protest and focus your direct action-but online, words are cheap. There's no limit to how many fronts we can fight online at once. So it makes sense IMO to fight all the battles we can, whenever we can, as part of an intersectional strategy.
I do still wonder what we're supposed to actually DO about all of this... Just talking about it hasn't helped so far... ~Red
@@arcticcircle9178 Well, refusing to buy MARS products will help. Boycotts are effective at impacting corporations, if they're large enough and can be sustained.
Which is why talking about it helps. It hurts their PR, and might inspire more people to boycott them.
@@CreeperKiller666 That's a big "if", unfortunately... And IIRC it didn't work for Nestle and that boycott was pretty big and a lot of people were talking about it. ~Cherri
I honestly can't tell the difference between the new and old M&M designs. It's almost like there's no issue and they're just making shit up to deflect blame...
At first I thought "why did they even feel the need to announce this miniscule design change" and then I realized it was a distraction
"Well, I guess you should've been born in a different country, child slaves." -M&M's
I always enjoy the hell out of how you light you set
THANK YOU. I've been yelling at the screen impotently for days about the slavery no one seems to notice.
I'm really loving the Thought Slime 3.0 lately. You've been dropping some gold.