Personal

*deep breaths* I’m Farrah, I’m a feminist, and I think we need to get over the Protein World adverts.

I’m a feminist. I strongly believe that women are not treated as individuals in a plethora of ways, from catcalling to cultural marginalisation and under-representation. I believe that objectification is a ‘gateway sexism’ to the dehumanisation of women, leading to cultural acceptance of the mistreatment, belittling and violence women face. The Protein World advert, imho, is dangerous as well as lame.

In the weeks following the unveiling of the unimaginative, over-trodden sexualised and controversial tube ads from the ‘marketing pioneers’ behind Protein World, everyone (it seems) has formed an opinion on the billboards that literally highlight the value of a woman through June to August as her tits, froo, and the skinny bits in between bright yellow.

As you can probably guess, I’m not a fan.

I don’t like that it’s a weightloss pill. I think diet pills are icky and the advertising is manipulative and boring- and to be honest if it had been an advert for a bikini rather than literally a body type, I probably wouldn’t have even raised my bushy eyebrows. These ads validated people who think if someone is fat, they’re unhealthy. They made women whoa ren’t a size 8 with grade A+ boobs (i.e. nearly all of us) feel less wonderful that day. But we need to get over it.

A policy I’m trying to live by is to choose joy. It means walking on the sunny side of the street, not throwing a hissy fit when someone at work has used the last teabag, and changing my mindset to be more positive. It’s working wonders for me, and I think it’s a way of life that people who live on the internet could benefit from.

The advertising world is full of creative media types that don’t try to benefit from negativity. I spotted this advert from Whole Foods on my way home the other day.

The drama caused by Protein World’s lame ass ad- which invoked no creativity or interesting brand identity other than ‘douchebags’- saw their profits soaring. Our anger is rewarding bad behaviour.

Instead, and maybe this is naive, but we should reward creativity, positivity and responsible brands with our praise.

Punishing brands doesn’t work if it just gives them free PR and a limo ride to roll up to the bank to. We can do better than that. We can demand for offensive crap to be taken down, but we can also prove to brands that we will respond to, and appreciate, messaging that isn’t designed to make s us feel like sweaty, ugly slobs.

 

By moving past the crap, rather than waving our virtual pitchforks at it, we can send a message to brands that pissing us off isn’t good enough. If we want to stop being made to feel like this, we have to make a decision to use our anger in a constructive way, and to diminsh the power these shitbags have over us. We need to show more love for the good stuff out there. We’ve got this, guys.

Last year, I wrote a pretty impassioned defence of New Year Resolutions. I was sick of people patronising resolutions, and in either a heartfealt attempt at self-improvement or a long moment of intense boredom, I wrote seven pages of resolutions.

So, money where my mouth is, let’s see how I did.

Resolution One: Career

“I want to be happy in a position that I can sustain myself in, with good prospects and opportunities. I want to learn more as a professional, and I want to be good at what I do”

Well, I’ve definitely made strides in this area. Even though when I wrote this, I didn’t forsee leaving GoodPeople, that’s precisely what I’ve done. I have a new job. I’m now working at a food and lifestyle marketing agency, Sauce, as an Account Exec. (Technically I’m a senior now, so let the LinkedIn congratulations messages roll on in.)

It was pretty tough leaving GoodPeople- I’d been there since I graduated, and the team there had become not only my only friends in London, but my sounding boards, the only people to find me as funny as I find myself, my shoulders to cry on and the people that paid for mdrinks. GoodPeople past and present all mean a lot to me, as was evident in the buckets (and buckets) of tears I cried at my leaving do. My new role is a lot more specific to marketing, and I’ve learnt so much already. As resolutions go, I think this one is a corking 8/10.

Resolution Two: Houselife

“Arrange standing orders, keep records of expenses, redecorate my room, make changes to communal areas, get rid of all the junk”

Okay- this one wasn’t as successful. I still haven’t sorted out my standing orders or kept records of it, but in my defence, I forgot I ever said I would do this. That basically doesn’t count.

I have started to make minor changes to the house set up- mostly in my room- and I’ve thrown tonnes of stuff out. To be honest, this is kind of a boring resolution, so even though I didn’t do most of it, I totally understand past-me’s bored attitude towards it, and am gonna give myself a 6/10 for trying.

Resolution Three: Food

“Prepare food in advance- you know you’re in late, stop buying crappy soup on the way home. Find time and money to go to the restaurants you’ve been pining after. More dinner parties!”

I have definitely upped my foodie game this year. I’ve been to loads of restaurants. I’ve stopped buying stuff to cook from frozen (except those vegetarian cheesey sausages from Sainsburys- love yourself and buy some), and I have been cooking stuff I’ve never tried before. I’ve not once had food poisoning this year, so 10/10 for that, but I have realised that I am not a finisher. Not in terms of eating food, you understand. In terms of serving it. I’ll be slaving over a hot oven for an entire day, and in the final ten minutes, totally freak out- like dishing up is causing me deep and extreme stress- and throw in raw fenugreek seeds to a perfectly good curry, or become so weepy trying to carve a roast chicken that an unimpressed flatmate will have to step in. I’m working on it.

Resolution Four: Do shit!

“Read more, write more, go to more shows and talks and museums and on walks. Get smart.”

I think I’ve done pretty well here. I’ve attended talks that left me buzzing with inspiration, I’ve been to plays that made me cry, shows that made me cry laughing, been interested and outraged and impressed by the massive world of ‘writer/bloggers’ I discovered, got muddy through long walks and started writing fiction again. I definitely want to read more novels, and getting back into writing a blog properly, sooo I’ll give myself a modest 7/10.

Resolution Five: Go places.

“Take trips, do new things there, travel with different people”

2014 was the best year of my life for travel. I was lucky enough to go to northern Italy, where I  pottered around Venice in a bottle green maxi skirt that matched the colour of the gondolas. I chaperoned my northern ladsladslads to Lanzarote, where I drank my way through the island’s rose wine reserves. I got to go to Croatia with Jaime, where we sunned ourselves like ladies of leisure and stuffed ourselves like pigs. I zipped over and under the north-south divide, and I also got to explore London, which is, dare I say it, slowly becoming a very important part of my soul. This year, my resolution is to take it outside of Europe.

Resolution Five: Be happy.

Be happy, be willing, be positive.

It is very difficult as a natural pessimist to be positive. This resolution was almost certainly influenced by my hippy-friends who do yoga and meditate and all that. For me, this has happened disguised as self acceptance. I’ve never been particularly stressed about who I am, but I think everyone takes a long time to get into their groove and stop pretending.

I’ve very much come to accept that I will always be the loudest laughing at my own jokes, my voice is a little bit too deep, and if you offer me a single Haribo or crisp, I will inhale the thing, causing me to splutter and tear up. I don’t like at least half of my clothes, but I have about thirty pajama outfits I’d rather be wearing anyways. I suck at the Kim Kardashian game but I’m gonna play it anyway. I might be a smart-ass, but at least I get myself into enough stupid situations that I’m humble about it. I literally give no shits that my music taste consists of not knowing the words to any song, excluding Taylor Swift’s entire back-catalogue. And instead of being “okay” with all of this, I’ve come to love it.

 

Have an amazing 2015 xx