Nation Still Unsure If This Ad Is Taking The Piss Or Not

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

As a nation returns to routine this week, many around Australia are left wondering if a certain television ad that was blasted to every corner of the country over the break was serious or just a bit of a joke.

The Stand Up To Hate campaign is a national, in case one hasn't had their retinas mercilessly and repeatedly abused by it while watching the cricket this summer, is media-led anti-racism initiative that has rolled out television advertising across Australia’s major commercial networks with complimentary replay on the dying media of commercial radio.

The ads feature well-known Australians, like Kyle Sandilands and Karl Stefanovic's brother, delivering direct-to-camera messages urging viewers to "reject racism" and "discrimination" and to "speak out" when they encounter hateful behaviour.

Backed by these major media organisations, the campaign frames itself as a response to rising social division, promoting multiculturalism, respect and social cohesion through a deliberately broad, values-based appeal. While it has been positioned as a unifying public message, it has also rightly drawn scrutiny for featuring media personalities and their employers that often perpetuate and inflame hatred between sections of society on this godless island.

One local man that spend these past few weeks in a reclining armchair, eating processed food and poisoning himself with soft drink, told The Advocate that the first time, and subsequent 200 other times he saw the ad this summer, left him feeling confused.

"I kind of thought it was a joke a first, like a skit from Big Bite or whatever," said Kurt Gutman, a retired bus driver from Betoota Heights.

"You know, big fat Kyle telling me not to call my fellow Australians names like "poofter" or "wog" or whatever. I mean, that's a bit rich coming from him. He's the worst of the bunch that bloke. I don't need Kyle telling me I can't cast aspersions over who and who doesn't bowl from the Paddington End, thank you very much. And he's just the start of it. There's that Eddie McGuire as well, who I don't think is a bad bloke, he just fucken loves burning the candle at both ends the cunt and he fucken made a cunt of himself over the Adam Goodes stuff. He's a genuine foot in mouth operator but as for his heart, I reckon he has a good one, for a Scotsman anyway, and it's in the right place but fuck me you give the cunt a bit of air time and he can and will say the wrong thing half the time bless him. Sir Peter Cosgrove, too. Spose he stood up to hate a few times. You know, sending the SASR up into the hills around Dili to, you know, cause a mob a dissidents a few mischiefs. No hand chopping or cliff kicking but you know they would've enjoyed themselves up in the jungle those lads. You know actually Sir Peter is from Paddington but it was different back then, it was fucken dangerous and not many Paddington End enjoyers lived on Underwood Street in the 1950s, I'll tell you that for free, joog,"

"Who else is in that fucken ad? Senator Nova Perris. Big Gorden. The Dee Why dolphin Johanna Griggs. I mean, the list goes on. That propellor head from Gruen, also. Forgot his name but he's a bloke and he's not the 55-year-old that dresses like a 12-year-old from Toorak. He's also not Wil Anderson. I like to think Wil turned down the opportunity to star in this ad and they rang that guy,"

"Anyway, it's a fucken weird ad."

The Advocate reached out to the lesser mastheads and organisations that've peddled this worthless campaign for weeks, but have yet to receive a reply.

More to come.