Ever get offended by a product?
Because it pokes fun at a condition you personally have?
Like this “Joy” card?
First of all, is MSpaint the new minimalism?
Secondly, call me crazy (both because I am a bit and the pun works magnificently here), but I’m not seeing anything about bipolar disorder on the actual product. Should people with chronic anger issues and depression sans the mania get upset about it? (Like they wouldn’t anyway?)
As a bipolar bear idling through life (allegedly – what do doctors really know) without prescription drugs (or any – except caffeine), I’ll concede: there’s a reason to feel disgusted by this card. But it’s less to do with making light of your and my plight. I’m all for levity. When it comes to congenital conditions which we cannot eradicate – only manage – my only way to survive is by spending an even amount of time laughing about it with non-sufferers and talking about it to sufferers (or a group of them) who can empathize. And even then, we usually end up laughing about some aspect of it together. I’d say “that’s just me,” but I do see a lot of other people taking this approach. And they seem more serene about their situation as a result.
What does strike me as bothersome is what the actual message is championing.
We may not be able to nix our condition, but we can manage it.
I’m not here to play South Park teacher and say a drugless society is my Utopia.
Especially when I would mainline caffeine if I could.
(Did they make this look like a Starbucks logo on purpose?)
Some people genuinely need pharmaceuticals. But there are so many others deprived of finding a holistic solution integrating the body and mind, who beeline to a bottle of pills because that’s what they’ve been told is the only way their whole lives. Products like these try to make it cute or funny – like it’s tantamount to binging on Bon bons or a House of Cards marathon. But the truth is, those latter things don’t hijack your brain (as much). Chemicals do. So, why not avoid if possible? Sometimes it’s hard to accept that maybe we can internally lasso something as spiritually eviscerating as a mental illness – because then we feel like we have to accept responsibility for it. I went through this for a long time (“If I didn’t put it there, why should I have to fix it? The world owes me for this!”) Yeah. I get that. But, like, I also didn’t ask for this fabulous head of hair. Yet, here I am, brushing it like a slave every morning.
(Maybe that’s why I murder it with bleach every month #resentment).
My drawn out point there is that it’s okay to laugh about the things we can’t change. Seriousness becomes a disease when over-applied to a preexisting and intrinsic disease of the mind. It has a time and a place, yes. But I find that if I get too serious all the time about my condition, it backfires. People don’t want to listen at all. They get bored. And I get bored of living in that headspace too. Why not laugh about it when we can? The seriousness should be reserved for the things we can actually help or prevent – like letting Big Pharma commandeer our brains with chemicals before we’ve at least tried all other options.
That said, I’m not supporting Joy – first because the card itself isn’t that funny.
Secondly, because the “Lithium” bit is like a stowaway on a bad joke train (had they said “drugs” instead, at least the irony would have made it tolerable comically). And thirdly, because their follow up Tweets were a dig-your-own-grave-with-your-palm-on-your-face style abomination.
I love to laugh – even (especially) at myself.
So when a joke with potential goes bad, it’s like buying popcorn and then realizing you walked into Andy Warhol film of a man sleeping for five hours. Unless that man is George Clooney.
And now, for the tweets:
(When probed about how inconsiderate it was to Bipolar sufferers):
Yeeesh…
(When asked about how an actual person with the disorder would feel seeing the card):
(Where my drum n’ cymbals at?!)
Then, finally a mea culpa – in an array of comma splices:
“We at JOY like to start conversations and create dialogue, we try to be irreverent, sometimes we get it wrong. Please accept our apologies.”
The first Twitter response defies the law of “keep them laughing or they’ll kill you” and the second one defies the equally important law of “know your audience”. It’s a little different when the message is on the product being bought than when your own customers are poking you about it on a platform the whole world can see. If you want to be irreverent and keep the cash flowing, limit your assholery to your product, read your readers, and know when to pack it in. I’d also say “never apologize for a good joke”.
But since it wasn’t funny, that doesn’t apply here.
Who knows, though.
Maybe it’ll be hilarious as soon as my mania kicks in.
