This article is just straight up insulting. I can’t even believe the terminology they are using here. It was one of the featured items on that little window that pops up on AIM. It’s called “Ten Signs She’s a Witch.”

This other one is just naive. It’s about a “study” that says that Queer Eye show is “turning men into shoppers.” Surprise surprise! That’s virtually the whole point of the show (or half of it anyway). As I recently overheard a friend explain to his visiting Italian girlfriend, “This show teaches men how to be materialistic.”

Sure sure, it also helps bring gay culture into the mainstream, and I am all for that. But I think the real agenda that is being played out in large part by this show is a commercial one. The idea that men make up a huge chunk of consumers, and traditionally, the products which are pitched to men, and which men buy are very specific. Most men have not been exposed so much to personal image products, like beauty supplies, clothes, etc, and have not been subject to the sort of constant criticism of body and appearance that women have been enduring for years.

This show is handily changing all that though. In order to effectively open men up to this kind of marketing, you have to start disassembling male sexual stereotypes and boundaries. And promoting gay rights and “alternative lifestyle choices” is an excellent social and intellectual tool for doing just that. I expect this sort of body/image oriented marketing towards men to skyrocket over the next few years as companies figure out more ways to get men to spend money in these areas.

Honestly, I’m curious to find out if that new term that popped up last year, “metrosexual,” was cooked up by some kind of marketing research team. Cause I never heard anybody fucking use it before I saw it splashed all over places like MSN and the evening news.