Apparently some Torontoites aren't just cold, but whiny as well.
What the hell Coors? Just when you shy away from that Silver Bullet nonsense and come up with something both hilarious and clever you pull it because of a few whiners?
Are these really the people who are going to drink your beer?
Ok, let’s back up. In case you didn’t see the headlines this week, Coors recently decided to scrap an ad campaign a few weeks early. The campaign was put up on billboards across BC. The controversial message: Coors Light is “colder than most people from Toronto.” Shocker. Here’s the background story courtesy of our good friends at the Tyee.
What really gets me is it is not the Toronto community that’s has been agitating for the destruction of the ad campaign, but rather a small select group of humourless folks who seem to pop up in every community around the world. They’re kinda like that dude you met recently at your friends party who didn’t laugh at jokes and seemed to get a kick out of taking personal offense to any vaguely controversial thing you say (I met this person several years ago at a sociology party at the University of Victoria). These people are loud, opinionated, and chomping at the bit the get in a scrap about anything deemed vaguely politically incorrect. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in volume. It’s this shrill volume that’s got the Coors marketing execs freaking out and what eventually convinced them they need to pull their ads.
It’s really to bad. The campaign is clever and plays well on the growing regionality that exists in our great country. It’s a regional pride that sometimes gets its energy from friendly provincial rivalry.
BC – the laid back pot smokers; Alberta – the country, right wing, religious, oil people; Manitoba – mosquitos and a ring road that traps people from Winnipeg from ever escaping; Quebec – gravey-drenched poutine and gorgeous women. I could go on, but I’ll leave that for anyone who wants to comment.
The point is each region has good and bad stereotypes that make them unique and bond their citizens in a terrific way. The fact that Westerners think of Torontoites as cold and business-focussed denizens of corporatism and capitalism (Toronto has been likened by many Canadians as the Centre of the Universe for a reason), isn’t surprising. It also should be taken with a grain of salt. There are lots of Torontoites that don’t fit that mold (or the Coors campaign mold for that matter) and are as warm as can be.
Why? Because in a way each community boasts its own characteristics. The good characteristics should be celebrated. The bad ones should be laughed at. Unfortunately, many in Toronto and Coors don’t seem to be laughing to hard.
Did you enjoy this post?
May we also suggest:
The Truth About Toronto So, I just completed a four-day business and pleasure trip to Toronto. Upon my return, I called, emailed and texted … Continue reading →...
Toronto Beer Week The first Toronto Beer Week wrapped up this past Sunday. It was a week to celebrate craft brewing in Ontario and beyond. The craft beer movement has been gaining momentum all over Canada for a few years now. Continue reading →...
Kurt. Your post was more uninformed thab a person from the Left Coast. That advertisement hurt our feelings in toronto and it wasn’t really even that funny. Try harder next time, pal.
- Pete
Hi pete,
Why did it hurt your feelings?
It’s obviously just an over-the-top play on regional stereotypes.
Thanks for the left coast jab, though. It may be also useful to comment about how I was probably “high writing the post.” That way you’ll cover the full gambit of Torontonian bias towards us BCites.
See – regional stereotypes can be fun.
kurt
This does raise an interesting question of when, if ever, stereotypes should be considered acceptable to reasonable-minded folk. I can certainly think of a few Canadian regional stereotypes that would not be acceptable (and must admit that I am amusing myself thinking of ads in which they could be used).
It seems to me that stereotypes are more widely tolerated if they are directed at a group that is clearly not persecuted/ oppressed, etc., e.g., Hollywood doesn’t seem to get any serious criticism for the disproportionate frequency of British accents among villains. I suspect that the Coors ads seem OK to a lot of people because Torontonians, even those who live in Vancouver, are not widely perceived to be persecuted.
If this is a guideline that respectable society uses, does that make it OK?
All of this reminds me of my favourite use of a regional stereotype. When I was in Edinburgh, someone sent an email around to the department (which had surprisingly few Scottish people in it), describing an upcoming demonstration of a very expensive piece of equipment. He described the numerous scientific wonders that this machine could do (and it could do a lot of highly technical things), and concluded with “and the Scottish model also deep-fries”. I thought this was very funny, but my Scottish supervisor was seriously offended.
Hi Kurt,
Like some of the other folks on the website I don’t agree with you. As you well know, I’ve lived in a few of the regions you mention, including Vancouver, (Lennoxville) Quebec and now Toronto. I use to share the lets all hate Toronto mindset, but now I think it does a real disservice to Canada. For the six months leading up to Katie and I moving to Toronto, friends, family members, and perfect strangers all questioned our sanity. I still often get asked: “why on earth would someone from Vancouver move to Toronto?” My anecdotal experience is that it is a lot stronger problem than simple regional rivalry – a lot of people in Canada really hate Toronto. When I engage these people in conversation it often turns out they’ve never been to Toronto and they seem to hate it because people are “cold” and the Maple Leafs always get the best time slots on CBC. This is more than a funny negative stereotype as it contributes to the significant political divide between the West and central Canada. Your website’s mandate is to highlight positive stories about community building and a post bashing all of us in Toronto who did not find this corporate attack on our city all that funny fails to live up to that goal. Toronto is a great city and I would love to see both its strengths and weaknesses represented throughout Canada, instead of the one dimensional “lets all hate Toronto” discourse.
Cheers,
Jim
A lot of this commentary can be summed up by this t-shirt: http://store.theonion.com/the-sports-team-from-my-area-is-superior-to-p-83.html.
Jim, you’re absolutely right, a lot of Kurt’s post and his subsequent commentary is more divisive than it is uniting. There are more West Coasters – perhaps Westerners in general, because I know the Flames and Oilers fans hate the Maple Leafs’ time slot, too – who irrationally dislike Toronto than there are people from Toronto who irrationally dislike the Vancouverites.
At UBC’s Business School we tell our students to explore their career options in Toronto for one important reason: Toronto is the Centre of Canada’s Universe. Embracing it’s awesomeness – and the awesomeness of all regions – instead of playing them off against each other to buy a rather watered-down and fairly un-delicious beer is probably a better all-round solution for the good of Canada.
And, hey, if Toronto really is part of Canada then the city and its people will have a frickin’ sense of humour! I mean, with the planet getting so hot, is anyone from Toronto really cold anymore? Come on…
Good talk. I’ll see you out there.
- JCH
Kurt.
It hurt our feelings for a few reasons. One, we are not cold people at all. Two, we feel bad that Canada is always divided on regional lines and that Toronto is always the focus of the division. Jim might know because he lived there but Toronto is picked on by the rest of the country way more than Quebec.I should know because I travel a lot for work.
I will be telling my friends to stay away from BC products since you rubbed salt in the wounds Coors left.
I hope your next post is more accurate and positive.
- pete
Pete, Thanks for the comments. I appreciate your candor and do hope my next post will be more interesting for you and less provocative.
Kurt