11 Things We Must Protect in 2017

Promotional Image via Covergirl.

Inclusive Advertising

Ads are annoying to everyone all the time, no matter how short they are, how catchy the jingle, or how clever the inevitable punch line (whoever decided commercials needed to feature comedy was a true monster). But lately, there’s been a positive trend in the advertising world that’s caused a national stir that’s both lovely and important. Last year, we got our first male Covergirl. Recently, Aerie has started to only put out advertisements featuring unphotoshopped women. Gay couples have been featured in countless major ad campaigns, plus-sized women are no longer being completely ignored by this market. And, overall, the ads that have bugged us by trying to sell us unwanted crap constantly since forever have only very recently begun to semi-accurately reflect the people they’re hoping to cater to.

It’s one of those phenomena that, really, is just a little thing. Seeing two gay men in a Target ad or a young boy with makeup on is lovely and makes us all feel included and worthy of being looked at. But in the grand scheme of things, the real win is that those of us who’ve been regarded as the minority demographic and therefore not even considerable as a viable sect of humanity for so long are now being recognized as, well, people. We contribute to this culture just as much as (if not more than) straight white folks, so really, why SHOULDN’T we have people like us on TV and in magazines buying the products we buy? It’s a painfully obvious, inevitable, yet still warm-and-fuzzy-making move, and we gotta keep the momentum going. ALL OF US BUY THINGS, YA KNOW! YOU HEAR ME, 2017 AD PEOPLE???? Except like boring car commercials you can let the vanilla white dudes still just have those to themselves, we’re good over here.