Technology Assisted Racism: Make Me Asian App

Taking the work out of altering photos by hand to add stereotypical racist features, there is now a Make Me Asian App.

According the promotional material:

“Have you ever wondered to present himself as a person of another nationality? You can imagine, for example, Chinese or Japanese? No? Then immediately take your phone and download it amazing Android-application called «Make me Asian».

This is just a fun app lets you indulge you and your friends! You can for a few seconds to make himself a Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other Asians!”

Here is an example of what it does:

 

I would just say that this seems like a bad idea put together by someone with too much time on their hands and just enough tech savvy to be dangerous, but I am afraid that somewhere in the world there are some impressionable youth using this app to modify photos, laughing uproariously and not at all understanding the actual import of their actions.

 

(Also available from the same brain trust the Make Me Indian App.)

Sluts across America: A Birth Control Advocacy Project

I am feeling old and prudish.  I understand the point behind the Sluts across America website: showing support for the right to birth control, reclaiming a word that has been used to demean and discredit women, striking back at Rush Limbaugh.  Still, I find the whole concept jarring and vaguely inappropriate.  I guess as a guy who grew up in a rather conservative environment  I am supposed to feel that way.  Perhaps if the campaign succeeds the word will not engender that unsettling connotation.