4 ms·

Am I the only one who's tired of these statements from corporations? I guess they're a relatively positive thing, but they feel so hollow. I got one from DoorDa

Am I the only one who's tired of these statements from corporations? I guess they're a relatively positive thing, but they feel so hollow. I got one from DoorDash yesterday, and it's tough not to roll my eyes at a company that has worked so hard to screw their drivers, many of whom are minorities, talk about how a food delivery service is fighting racism.

zepto 6y ago
Yes, but it depends a lot on the company.
kgraves 6y ago
It's all empty gestures to me. Just like how VCs are now starting to invest in minorities. Spare me your fake sympathy.
- zepto 6y ago
  ‘Now starting to invest’ is the opposite of an Emory gesture.
- RivasPT 6y ago
  Why people continue to use the term "minority"? In California Whites are the minority also. You wanted to say "invest in Blacks and Latinos"?
chippy 6y ago
I think the genre is "woke capitalism"
dgrin91 6y ago
You can also see how hollow it is by how little they have at stake in their statements. Hong Kong has it much worse than the US protesters, where is Apple's statement on that? Once Apple puts their iPhone factories at risk then I'll start respecting their statements.
- rvz 6y ago
  Well, both are injustices and Apple was 'wrong' before, given they reversed their decision [0] after being accused of double standards when Tim Cook defended their decision to side with China and censor HKMaps [1], suppressing the HK protestors. And now they backing this injustice and these protests? Sounds like hypocrisy here. [0] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/03/apple-bans-app-used-by-hong-kong-protestors/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/03/apple-bans-app-used-by-... [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/11/tim-cook-defends-removal-hkmaplive-from-app-store/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/11/tim-cook-defends-remova...
chomp 6y ago
No, but that's because I've worked on a team that has crafted these statements before (and then we emailed them out as the CEO). Our statements would get passed around in a Google doc to about 5 different people who would distill it down to platitudes that ended up sounding right, but soulless. With a social media team, no one is going to stick their necks out and take a strong stance because it'll never get approved. Also you are speaking as a corporation which is a collection of people, so you wind up hitting the lowest common denominator of stances on social issues. But you have to do something because your competitors are doing something. Also, your employees may be asking for you to put out a statement on an issue. So these things get born. At the end of the day you should just remember that corporations are not people, even when it looks like a single person is talking. I'll stop there before I start going on a tangent. Also for what it's worth, I thought DoorDash's response was fairly decent because there was substance to it. But I do agree that you can't take their statements in a vacuum and it's easy to see that it's just platitudes based on their crummy employment and business model.
- awillen 6y ago
  Okay, but then I guess my question is what's the point? If everybody knows it's a soulless statement, why make it at all? It just doesn't seem like this contributes anything to the discourse at all. I would actually respect a company like Apple putting out a statement that just says, "We're almost entire white guys, so we're not really qualified to say anything meaningful here. We support this movement and are making a donation of $X to Y charity, and beyond that we're going to be quiet and listen."
MrMember 6y ago
The companies that are actually taking action and doing something are great. Like Humble Bundle has pledge $1M to publish games by black creators. The meaningless press releases where the company/CEO puts out a PR crafted statement are pretty terrible.

zepto 6y ago

Yes, but it depends a lot on the company.

kgraves 6y ago

It's all empty gestures to me. Just like how VCs are now starting to invest in minorities. Spare me your fake sympathy.

zepto 6y ago
‘Now starting to invest’ is the opposite of an Emory gesture.
RivasPT 6y ago
Why people continue to use the term "minority"? In California Whites are the minority also. You wanted to say "invest in Blacks and Latinos"?

chippy 6y ago

I think the genre is "woke capitalism"

dgrin91 6y ago

You can also see how hollow it is by how little they have at stake in their statements. Hong Kong has it much worse than the US protesters, where is Apple's statement on that? Once Apple puts their iPhone factories at risk then I'll start respecting their statements.

rvz 6y ago
Well, both are injustices and Apple was 'wrong' before, given they reversed their decision [0] after being accused of double standards when Tim Cook defended their decision to side with China and censor HKMaps [1], suppressing the HK protestors. And now they backing this injustice and these protests? Sounds like hypocrisy here. [0] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/03/apple-bans-app-used-by-hong-kong-protestors/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/03/apple-bans-app-used-by-... [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/11/tim-cook-defends-removal-hkmaplive-from-app-store/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/11/tim-cook-defends-remova...

chomp 6y ago

No, but that's because I've worked on a team that has crafted these statements before (and then we emailed them out as the CEO). Our statements would get passed around in a Google doc to about 5 different people who would distill it down to platitudes that ended up sounding right, but soulless. With a social media team, no one is going to stick their necks out and take a strong stance because it'll never get approved. Also you are speaking as a corporation which is a collection of people, so you wind up hitting the lowest common denominator of stances on social issues. But you have to do something because your competitors are doing something. Also, your employees may be asking for you to put out a statement on an issue. So these things get born. At the end of the day you should just remember that corporations are not people, even when it looks like a single person is talking. I'll stop there before I start going on a tangent. Also for what it's worth, I thought DoorDash's response was fairly decent because there was substance to it. But I do agree that you can't take their statements in a vacuum and it's easy to see that it's just platitudes based on their crummy employment and business model.

awillen 6y ago
Okay, but then I guess my question is what's the point? If everybody knows it's a soulless statement, why make it at all? It just doesn't seem like this contributes anything to the discourse at all. I would actually respect a company like Apple putting out a statement that just says, "We're almost entire white guys, so we're not really qualified to say anything meaningful here. We support this movement and are making a donation of $X to Y charity, and beyond that we're going to be quiet and listen."

MrMember 6y ago

The companies that are actually taking action and doing something are great. Like Humble Bundle has pledge $1M to publish games by black creators. The meaningless press releases where the company/CEO puts out a PR crafted statement are pretty terrible.