NSFW
Yesterday, the web was lit up with the new cover of Rolling Stone magazine, feature 3 very naked cast members of the HBO hit show “True Blood”. Accompanying this provocative image was the usual battle over whether such an image should be considered NSFW (not suitable for work). Many people would say that they (or their HR dept.) would find this image unsuitable to be displayed on a screen at work.
Yet the same image can be found displayed publically in almost any newsstand selling the magazine, so why would the same image that can be displayed in public be inappropriate online? Is there a double standard for what can be viewed online and what can be viewed in public?
Consider the Dove ads that have appeared on many billboards: (more nudity after the jump)
Not only was that ad NOT considered particularly offensive, it has been lauded as an excellent campaign within the advertising industry. So perhaps it’s not the nudity that is the issue, perhaps it’s the perceived connotations that are associated with it. Considering the following magazine cover that I just pulling from a counter in a common space in my office:
This cover has about the same amount of nudity as the Rolling Stone and came out only a few weeks before the True Blood cover, yet you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that would consider this NSFW. How about this cover from Entertainment weekly:
Does anybody consider this NSFW? 3 naked celebrities should be pretty spicy stuff, but what made this cover controversial wasn’t the nudity, it was the message: the EW cover was pushing free speech at a time when speaking out against the occupation of Iraq wasn’t. The EW cover is politically charged, whereas Rolling Stone was just being sexy. Skeptical? Let’s go back to the Dove campaign and compare it to another well known campaign group that is often the center of controversy:
Despite showing no more of the female form than the Dove ads, these ads are often criticized as inappropriate, because of the sexuality of the image. Even though the Peta ads are pushing an ‘animal friendly’ message, they do so in a way that supposedly exploits sexuality, The Dove ads are equally naked, but promote feeling good about your body. So does sexuality = bad, but feeling good about your naked body=good?
Bringing this all back to the matter of NSFW, it would seem that the real issue here is not the amount of skin at all, but is really an issue of controlling subject matter. Nudity seems ok, as long as its promoting a politically correct message. In a way, it would seem that the web is the purveyor of inappropriate materials, but its not nudity that is the is problem, it’s the message.
From an media perspective, many advertisers are reluctant to run ads online in part because of fear of their brand being associated with NSFW content. However, if its not the nudity that’s NSFW, what exactly are we really afraid of being associated with? Maybe its time to stop hiding behind the nudity and start being honest about the ideas that we don’t want to support.
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