The price of being seen

I’ve been thinking about the conversation around Sydney Sweeney’s “Just Sports” campaign (https://novig.com/justsports) for Novig.

Much of the debate has turned into a question of individual choice: is she allowed to present herself this way? Of course she is. But I think that question is too small.

The more interesting question is what happens when an entire media system keeps teaching young men to confuse beauty with sexual desirability, and young women to confuse sexual desirability with femininity.

What the images teach

There is nothing inherently wrong with sexuality. The problem begins when sexuality becomes the default language through which women are made visible.

When girls see, again and again, that attention, opportunity and cultural relevance are rewarded through desirability, what are we teaching them about the price of being seen? And when boys keep meeting women through images designed mainly around desire, what are we teaching them to notice first?

Attention is the business model

From a marketing perspective, the campaign worked. It generated enormous attention, conversation and earned media. That may be exactly what makes it worth examining.

The attention economy has learned to monetize two extraordinarily powerful forces: male desire and female insecurity. Controversy only makes the model more effective. Men criticize women, women criticize women, women criticize men. We stay busy judging one another’s individual choices, and spend far less time questioning the systems that keep profiting from them.

No conspiracy is required. The incentives are enough.

A better question for marketers

So for those of us who make marketing and media, I think the question has to go beyond “Did the campaign get attention?”

It should also be: what kind of culture are we reinforcing every time we decide that attention is the only metric that matters?

This piece was first shared on LinkedIn.