Text/Li Guangdou
In a road news report, the reporter asked the old man what he saw at that time. The old man said I didn't know anything, I was eating watermelon. Later, the term "melon-eating masses who do not know the truth" spread.
The sense of existence of the melon-eating masses is so strong and the "wisdom" is so strong that even the protagonists of hot events are inferior by three points. As soon as a hot spot broke out, they quickly gathered, moved a small bench, and prepared melon seeds (there are two sayings of "melon" for the melon-eating masses, one refers to watermelon, and the other refers to melon seeds). In the Internet era, the melon-eating masses are only responsible for watching and are not responsible for the results of things, but there is still great lethality in the mouths of the people. And once the incident reversed, the "melon-eating masses who did not know the truth" quickly dispersed, "people like Qiu Hong came to have faith, and things were like spring dreams without a trace." ”
However, the same melon has a completely different meaning in the United States. Recently, the American Robert Pattison lost his golden job because he did not understand the cultural meaning behind "eating melon". In order to show favor to the old employees, Robert, a new firefighter in Detroit, bought and sent a large watermelon to everyone, and carefully tied a pink bow to decorate. I didn't expect that good intentions did bad things, and the old employees didn't buy it at all. Then things got big and Robert was fired. Why, exactly?
Robert was interviewed by Fox News
It turned out that 90% of the firefighters at the Detroit Fire Department were African Americans, and the act of sending watermelons hit their sensitive belt - racial discrimination!
This matter has to start from before the Civil War, because blacks love to eat watermelons, so southern slave owners always talk about watermelons, mocking blacks as a group of lazy eggs and fools who only know how to nibble watermelons in the fields, and also labeling watermelons as "should not appear in public".
At the end of the Civil War, when many freed blacks supported themselves by growing and selling watermelons, prejudiced white farmers looked at them unfavorably and used watermelons to demonize the image of blacks. Because the nutritional value of watermelon is not high and it is easy to grow, they labeled watermelon as "lazy" and "depraved", and made a large number of propaganda posters that scandalized the image of black people. This kind of watermelon satirizing black people has been passed down from generation to generation in white culture, and it is used frequently, and until now, black brothers still feel very hurt when they hear this word.
For example, during the election season of 1880, Democrats attacked the South Carolina legislature (black majority), saying they were wasting taxpayers' money buying watermelons for themselves. This meme also appeared in early film and television dramas, and the American movies "The Birth of a Nation" and "Watermelon Field" all appeared in the picture of black people with watermelons. So if a white man gives a black watermelon, it is simply to expose the scar and laugh at his meaning, but many young generations of white people do not know the meaning of this stem, and there are also things that cause misunderstandings because of misuse.
In 2014, the Boston Herald published a cartoon to satirize the poor security at the White House, showing a salesman running into the White House and sitting in a bathtub selling toothpaste for a watermelon stomach to Obama. It's simply... Ask Obama for psychological shadow area. So the newspaper quickly apologized and changed the watermelon-flavored toothpaste in the comic to strawberry-flavored toothpaste.
Not only watermelons, but also fried chicken and grape sodas were put on the back of the pot, all of which were labeled as "poor sour foods loved by black people at the bottom" because blacks liked to eat them. In the 2008 movie "Pig's Head Goes to the Street", there is a bridge section that uses grape soda to humiliate black people.
So if you make a black American friend, don't say he's a "melon eater, or ask him to eat watermelon." If your brand is to be promoted in the United States, avoid these taboo symbols that have a special meaning.
The author of this article is Li Guangdou: the first person of Chinese brands, the brand consultant of CCTV, the famous brand strategy expert, the founder of the brand competitiveness school, the chief consultant of the Internet Finance Committee of the China Electronic Commerce Association, and the founder of Huasheng Zhiye • Li Guangdou brand marketing agency.