Sweet Cheerios Commercial Soured by Ignorance

This week, "Just Checking," a Cheerios commercial featuring a mixed-race family ignited racist, hateful backlash via the Youtube comments section -- so much that it had to be closed.  A Huffington Post article today goes into more detail.  As I'm in the business of social and behavior change marketing, that is using commercial marketing to affect change in social attitudes and behavior, I want to give an upside to this, and offer people a way to take their anger at this phenomenon and actually make a difference.

Social norms are a powerful force in society, and affect human behavior to a great degree, no less so on the Internet, where the word "peer" gets diffused to include larger and larger groups of people that may or may not classify themselves as "peers" (i.e. people of the same demographic or interests) in the "real" world.  So in this way, the sheer number of comments that favor one idea or another tend to give them strength more than they would in the real world, where you can consider the source. Sure,
"WE" all know that these disturbed individuals spewing hatred are not one of "US," but the collective Internet "community mind" does not.  So taking down the comment section was a good move in my opinion by Cheerios. Although the problem might have also been alleviated by rallying Youtube viewers to flag the racist comments, this would have given more time, and more energy, and in turn more validation, to the negative messages.

So let me move to the positive element to all this.  First of all, bravo to Cheerios! Yes, it seems ridiculous in this day and age that we have to congratulate a company for portraying the reality of racial diversity in life and love, but as demonstrated by this incident, it is still sorely needed.  The fact is, the more and more that love and kindness and equality is shown as mainstream, the more trash and pollution (i.e. ignorant banter) will be watered down and evaporated into the nothingness that it is!  Social norms are really about collective consciousness-- what we meditate on, put out there in messages and commentary, becomes the reality, plain and simple.

I would encourage everyone to LIKE the video, so Cheerios will understand they are on track (and will sell more Cheerios to non-hateful customers, good for them) and others will get the message loud and clear, that hatred and racism can't and won't be tolerated in a truly free USA. No, it won't happen overnight, but change will happen.

As the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Peace!