Culture

People Are Tearing Into ‘The Australian’ For Trying To Make “Four Sub-Brands Of Woke” A Thing

'The Australian' paired the baffling article with a photo of 'The Project' hosts, proving that gay and trans icon Peter Helliar is tearing society apart.

by Michelle Rennex  21 May 2021
the australian woke sub-brands

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It’s no secret that The Australian loves to write terrible takes and has a serious vendetta against anything it deems to be “woke”.

I mean, a quick search on the publication pulls up 17 articles that revolve around the concept of “woke” that have come out this month alone. That is 17 pieces of content furious with “woke culture” that have been published in the past 21 days.

But among this trash pile of lukewarm takedowns is The Australian’s latest banger: ‘Woke is a genius brand, and a threat to our way of life‘ written by Sean Masters.

Masters, who is a creative director in the advertising industry, spends the entire article explaining why being woke is actually a “highly sophisticated lifestyle brand” and not just a “dangerous ideology” that “disorganised radical students” use to virtue signal.

Sean Masters is convinced that being woke is all about branding — and even worse, the author believes that the ~brand of woke~ is actually built on four woke sub-brands. Woke-ception, some would say.

“Its four sub-brands — gay, trans, gender, and race — have become the great social trip-wires of our time,” the article preview reads.

Now there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered here, but first, let’s dive into the piece itself.

Masters entire stance stems from his belief that the current generation “want to violently rail against the system” because we have “no faith in capitalist ideals” due to the 2008 financial crisis and “the death of religion”. True! Fuck capitalist ideals!

But apparently desperate for something to believe in, Masters reckons that “customers of woke” are drawn in because they are “offered a sense of moral superiority, a group identity, and are freed from personal responsibility, thanks to a victim mentality”.

As the piece continues, the advertising major goes on to pick and pull apart how “being woke” is just a brand that is given free media coverage — which I would personally call holding people accountable for their terrible actions, but sure.

“Woke is already in all media, free of charge. The brand has whole publications such as The Guardian devoted to it, taxpayer-funded networks like SBS and the ABC showcase woke wares, and even commercial programs like The Project have bought in, big time,” Masters writes.

“Woke is so powerful that tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter have colluded to ensure that if you’re not on brand, you’re out. Tens of thousands of people have been ‘permanently suspended’ from Twitter for so-called ‘hateful conduct’.”

But then, Masters get stuck into the most baffling part of the article — the apparent sub-brands of woke that are threatening society.

“The largest four brand pillars of woke are gay, trans, gender, and race… these four have become the great social trip-wires of our time,” the writer continues. “The gay logo, of course, is the iconic rainbow flag. Trans has the tripled Venus and Mars design.”

“Each brand needs a high-impact tagline. For gender, it’s ‘Believe Women’. For race, ‘Black Lives Matter’.”

And, sorry? What the fuck does any of this even mean? Gender and trans are the same things, so why are they both a sub-brand? Is the author trying to suggest that we shouldn’t believe women when they say they’ve been sexually assaulted because it is ~too woke~ to do so? How is wanting to be fairly included in society and not wanting someone to be racist towards you woke, and not just the bare minimum expectation against discrimination?

Yet, even with nothing making much sense, the one question that was on everyone’s lips was why an article, that pushes the idea of “gay, trans, gender, and race” taking over society, paired with a photo of The Project cast? A cast that famously features three straight, white people and no one who is gay or trans?

Look, it’s clear that The Australian thinks that The Project is the epitome of “woke culture”. But, if we look at The Project through the “sub-brand” analysis Sean Masters literally just wrote, the program’s casting doesn’t match up to the article’s messaging at all.

I guess, if you take anything away from this ridiculous article it’s to stay away from Peter Helliar, Australia’s new gay and trans icon threatening our way of life — one Project episode at a time.