The irony here is that she's probably sleeping with the geek BECAUSE she bought MS Office.

But then, I'm a geek. I guess.

That's absolutely grotesque. Where was this originally? (What publication or media would even consider running this?) Ugh.

Notice her face vs. his face. Gross.

You have to love something that can be this offensive on this many different levels. Smart men are unfuckable nerds. Attractive women are dumb hos (hoes?). $199 is a "student friendly" price.

I saw this on my campus! There was another really awful one as well, but now I can't remember what it was...anyway, I meant to make a complaint, but forgot--thanks for reminding me!

Awesome. I love how it manages to insult smart young men, attractive young women, all while throwing in a little false advertising - unless it actually DOES the assignments for you.

Try regendering it with a really smart looking girl and a bored looking "hot" guy. That would be an interesting photoshop contest.

Go Farmer Ted!

Thank you, norbizness, I just spit Diet Coke all over my laptop.

Ah yes, and let the blonde jokes fly where they may...

Why are all of my comments (well, both) getting put in moderation? I'd use an emoticon to express how this makes me feel, but they demean us all.

Thank you, Manda. You said it perfectly.

That pretty much insulted all the key demographics.

That's for real! Damn, Microsoft - paying $$$ to tweak Wikipedia and now this?

I thought it was like those fake Puma ads from a few years ago: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/fake_puma_ad_mystery_solved/

I usually pay the dollar equivalent of 10 or 20 lost hours of sleep.

so, so glad i use openoffice:
http://www.openoffice.org/

free is much, much cheaper than $199 and the implication that only a man can do my homework.

Office 2003?

Why do you feminists always live in the past? SEXISM IS OVER. It ended October 11th, 2005. Four-ish.

That picture offends me. It says, basically, that smart males and females are dorky, awkward and unattractive. Shame on you, Micro$oft! >:(

Why are you all assuming the guy is the smart one? ;)

Umm, because she is the one with the "I can't believe I did that" face and he's got the same expression my daughter had after she scored her first home run. I think their roles are pretty easy to spot.

norbizness:

Instead of "Farmer Ted" I actually thought you said "Father Ted" and I then pictured McDougal instead of the geeky guy. (Maybe I watch too much BBC?)

Why anyone would actually stoop to the level of paying such an outrageous price is beyond me. Either get it from something like bittorrent, or buy it on Ebay.

Most of my computer's software is stolen, and operates using cracks or keygens (afterall, if I can get it for free, why would I want to waste what little money I have on it?). And I only paid $80 for my OS, Windows XP, on ebay. Same with my AntiVirus software. $30 on ebay, $70 on the company's site, and more in the stores.

I think if Bill Gates wants to cryptically reveal how he got the funding to start Microsoft, we should let him.

;)

Damn! In college I lent my notes out for free! :( (P.S. -- I am a hot woman. Oh, and this is my first comment here. Hi!)

Umm, because she is the one with the "I can't believe I did that" face and he's got the same expression my daughter had after she scored her first home run. I think their roles are pretty easy to spot.

That doesn't mean he's smarter. All it means is that she thinks he'll do the assignment better than she can.

Fair enough, Alon. I'm sure there are people who would think that exchanging sex for a term paper is a pretty smart deal. I completely missed that suggestion from noname's post - probably because I've spent the better part of the day doing my own crap for class.

Maybe this ad was designed by Apple. ;) Because otherwise, I'm at a loss.

What a messy complex of institutional sexism this advertisement is, though. Let us count the ways:

- Prostitution

- Commodification of beauty

- Tech advantage, male

- Classroom performance advantage, male

- Tech disadvantage, female

- Classroom performance disadvantage, female

I could go on. This is a very edgy ad, and edgy can be a very good thing in some contexts. This isn't one of them; it reinforces, rather than challenges, stereotypes.

Cheers,

TH

Tom:

What's wrong with prostitution? If a someone wants to sell sex for money, they should damn well be allowed to. Do you like porn, Tom? Because porn is glorified prostitution. Those people get paid to have sex, you know...

Yay for Open Office!

I'm glad someone brought that up already. You can do all the things (and more) that microsoft office can do for you, and it's free! It takes a little getting used to, but it's well worth it. (And yes, you can even save stuff in MS word format for sharing with all the unenlightened ones.)

And maybe this is an awful generalization (much like the one in the above advertisement), but I'd like to think that most of the nice geeky smart guys I know wouldn't enjoy sleeping with a woman who so obviously didn't enjoy it. It's incredibly demeaning in both directions. And they probably wouldn't be using Microsoft products either for that matter.

If there's anything wrong about prostitution, it's the way it makes men and women hate eachother. Women hate the notion of being bought and sold as commodities and men hate the notion that women just like them for money. These being such typical complaints, I didn't think it had to be mentioned.

Regardless of the respective veracity of these opinions, the fact that they are believed prostitution to cause some social harm. It raises misogyny among men and misandry among women. This does not make it important enough for me to value the outlawing of either side of this transaction, but others may take a different view and have. We live in a democracy and must accept the majority opinion or alter it.

As for the ad, this sort of thing does happen, and as such is a valid expression in advertising and art. Wishing it didn't happen is probably wiser than pretending it never does.

I think the problem is that it makes it seem like prostitution is the only way she can pass the class.

That it's right to prostitute to cheat iin school, and that it's right to pay for sex (with school cheating services no less).

One could argue that the guy is selling himself in the sense that he is letting his mind be used...but that's shakey at best.

I'm going to shamefully advertise the even more student-friendly option - Open Office, which desn't (to my knowledge) use this kind of shoddy advertising and, more importantly to money-strapped students with an assignment that is due tomorrow, can be downloaded free from their website, and allows you to save everything in Microsoft-office friendly format if you are moving your files around. Stick it to the rich nerd.

Heh. I actually wrote a song about this when I was a teenager. The idea that everyone was incredibly envious of a "brilliant wimp" who had a hot babe for a girlfriend, but then the moment grades came in, she "ditched Farrell so fast it would make your head spin".

It was in 1985 or so, and I was 15, so "geek chic" wasn't in yet. I saw the girl dating Farrell (the nerd in the song) to get his help on her term papers as a manipulative user and Farrell as a poor, well-meaning dupe. (Why, yes, I resented the popular pretty girls that the nerd I had a crush on wanted to date instead of me, why do you ask? :-))

If the geek in this ad knows that the woman is just giving him sex to get his help, and he's okay with that, then he's the user in this ad. But if he thinks she loves him, he's getting just as bad a deal as she is.

But here's what I don't understand. It's Microsoft *Office*. Not a programming solution, not a database solution, it's a frigging word processor, spreadsheet and presentation creator. "Geeks" aren't traditionally seen as just all-around smarties, they're specifically smart in areas like math, science and programming. So how is MS Office going to do something for this woman if she needs the help of a geek? And isn't mastery of wordprocessing programs typically gendered feminine (by stereotype) because it's the administrative assistants in corporations that always make the slides and format the letters and proposals? I mean, when I was a temp, I *never* met a guy who had that job.

I always thought that the person who writes your term paper was gendered feminine because women are writers and they can spell, whereas the person who fixes your computer was gendered masculine by cultural stereotype. Why is Office going to help her if her computer is broken?

I don't know, maybe I'm working off old stereotypes, but I thought the "smart girlfriends do their dumb jock boyfriend's paper for him" stereotype was as old as my mom (a smart woman who used to do her dumb jock brother's papers for him, but at least dated and married a geek. :-)) This ad just doesn't make sense to me. It's got the wrong solution for the stereotypes it's presenting.

If the geek in this ad knows that the woman is just giving him sex to get his help, and he's okay with that, then he's the user in this ad. But if he thinks she loves him, he's getting just as bad a deal as she is.

I can't really agree with that analysis. If he knows the score- that she's having sex with him solely to get him to do her homework- then they're both users. She's using him to get out of doing her work, and he's using her to get sex. And, to be perfectly honest, if he doesn't know the score, and thinks that she's actually interested in him, I think he's got the worse end of the deal, as far as their exchange goes, because she's getting what she wants (or, at least, what the ad suggests that she wants), while he's getting lied to and used.

I always thought that the person who writes your term paper was gendered feminine because women are writers and they can spell, whereas the person who fixes your computer was gendered masculine by cultural stereotype.

No, see- they're in college. Women go to college to find husbands. Women may like books and writing and such, but they're not supposed to be academic about it. Reading romance novels and writing flowery poetry and letters to your friends doesn't count. And he's not just writing a paper, he's doing assignments. Notice the bottom- we're talking e-mail, spreadsheets, presentations, research, etc. Women can't handle all that complicated stuff on the computer.

God. Totally vomitrocious.

How about these thoughts bubbles?

Him: Oh, I am so totally going to pass this class!

Her: I feel a little better after the f*ck but I can't believe this loser doesn't even know how to use Word.

Me: Mooo haaa haaaa, I have SHARPIES!

Nobody said he looks like Bill Gates.

Microsoft (Windows) has to be the biggest corporate monopoly in the world.

Delurking for a moment to note that I didn't delete the Microsoft pic from my photostream. Some troll from Microsoft complained to Flickr, and they deleted it. Apparently, the geniuses at Microsoft don't want anyone actually viewing the ads they spend good $$$ to produce and distribute.

Hate Microsoft.

- Kelly G. / smiteme

So, as it turns out I could have been getting some action in return for all that help I gave in Thermo, huh? I missed my opportunity for a completely exploitative relationship. Argh, hot guy from class would have been mine!

So, as it turns out I could have been getting some action in return for all that help I gave in Thermo, huh? I missed my opportunity for a completely exploitative relationship. Argh, hot guy from class would have been mine!