In regards to Poland... Microsoft is racist.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

Can you spot the differences between these 2 pictures?


"Microsoft recently created two versions of an online ad for IT tools, one for its U.S. site and the other for its Polish page. In the Polish version, Microsoft replaced a black man with an equally happy-to-be-at-a-business-meeting white dude. Some people reason that Microsoft tailored its presentation to Poland's extremely homogeneous population, while others contend this was just another manifestation of Micro$oft's unfathomable villainy. Either way, the Something Awful Forum Goons were happy to help the company cater to some untapped demographics."

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/microsoft-photoshop-empower.php

Comments

[gholam.livejournal.com]

Somethingawful is full of retards? Say it ain't so!

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

This is a real ad, though.

"Hey! We can't have a Mac in the middle of a Microsoft ad!"
"Don't worry, I'll just clone out the Apple logo, and no one will know it's an iBook G4."
--
"Wait? Are there black people in Poland?"
"Don't worry, I'll just comp in a guy with vaguely Slavic looks, lit from a completely different angle."
--
"We need the woman at the head of the table to be doing something."
"Don't worry, I'll put in a monitor with no power or video cable, and a random keyboard with no mouse."

[dukesnorre.livejournal.com]

There's also ytmnd (http://microlove.ytmnd.com/), photoshop disasters (http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2009/08/microsoft-poland-at-least-they-left.html), and reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/9e157/microsoft_poland_spot_the_difference/) mentions.

And the university of lublin (http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2009/09/university-of-lublin-broken-token.html).

[xanthrant.livejournal.com]

and the hand looks a little dark still....major fail

[dukesnorre.livejournal.com]

oh, and it ended up on news.bbc (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8221896.stm) even.

[forge.livejournal.com]

Icon props =D

[forge.livejournal.com]

Saw this sometime back... I was kinda in awe.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

I bet they did this in M$Paint.

Fuck blur tools. Copy/Paste is where it's at!

[wibbble]

Yeah, saw this all over the mainstream media last week. Old meme. :op

[hyuga.livejournal.com]

You'd think at that point they'd just find a different goddamn stock photo.

And hey, why didn't they take out the Asian guy while they're at it?

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

They should've just used the bucket-fill tool

[madjacktech.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we had fun shooping it even more for lolz on TSC.

[kyidyl.livejournal.com]

...they didn't even replace the whole dude, just his head. Look at the hand, it's the same hand, and it kinda looks like the black dude was wearing a white glove in the picture because of the ring around his wrist and it's two different colors. O.o

[shifuimam.livejournal.com]

I don't get the point of people getting their panties in a bind over this kind of stuff.

It's not a Bad Thing if a country like Poland is almost entirely white. Racial "diversity" is not required for a country to be legitimate or otherwise valid. I mean what, should they do what we did and forcefully cart over a bunch of black people in order to artificially diversify the population?

Also: every single person in those ads looks way too happy to be in a meeting.

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

"I mean what, should they do what we did and forcefully cart over a bunch of black people in order to artificially diversify the population?"

Worked for teh schools! ;)

[superbus.livejournal.com]

OK, while we in America/Canada can get offended over Microsoft's silly racism, ask yourself this:

How many black people are in Poland? Seriously? Two? Three? And they are either play football or basketball and come from other countries?

I remember everyone laughing because there was some commercial for a Microsoft product - might have been Vista - that had a Macbook in it. Everyone laughed at Microsoft, but people don't realise that they're just using stock photos made for that very purpose - do I need to go into the history of Everywhere Girl? - and generally, Macintosh laptops are more visually appealing than what was - at the time - a rather bulky alternative from Dell, or anyone else.

This doesn't bother me. Microsoft was just going with their audience. I think it was a bit clumsy, and not even good photoshopping, but meh.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

Thing is as well, there's a lot of mac laptops on the redmond campus. They were using one to take our photos at the MVP jolly I went to.

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

See the obvious flaw in the add is that they didn't change the background.

How many skyscrapers are there in Poland?

Um...

[lintilla.livejournal.com]

That's downtown Warsaw...

And I've seen Prague in the Czech Republic, and it's got a pretty modern-looking CBD area too.

Re: Um...

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

bah! It's all made with gluesticks and cardboard!

Obviously a plot to ward of the russians!

;-)

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

What's the east Asian population like in Poland? They didn't shop out the guy on the left.

[russianswinga.livejournal.com]

But the alternate versions are so much more fun!!!