

ABOVE: ASUS' original, hastily-deleted sexist ad - see my new and improved version below!

ASUS posted a gem of sexist advertising on Twitter yesterday. Although they were pretty quick to delete it after a less than favorable reception, the internet seldom forgets. By the time they'd scrubbed their Tweet the gloriously bad ad (shown above) had already been saved to hard drives around the world. Including mine.

There are a lot of problems with this ad. The one that should hit you in the face immediately is that the "Hardcore Gamer" is male, and the "Casual Gamer" is female. In the context of gaming and general geekdom, the terms "hardcore" and "casual" are often used on clearly gendered lines. It's a tired old trope already, but it persists. I also have a hard time accepting the use of hardcore and casual to describe games themselves. The ad above defines The Sims as a casual game (and treats it like it's a game played in short bursts -- was this ad made by a fake gamer boy?) but I know people who are ten times more hardcore about The Sims than many fans of "true" "hardcore" games like CS:GO or DOTA 2 are. Any game can be hardcore or casual; it all depends on how you play it.

Even if you're the most run-of-the-mill, advertisers-wet-dream male gamer around this ad should piss you off because yes, it's talking shit about you too. To ASUS, you're some bro who can't take care of his things, can't control his temper, and can't pry himself away from the glow of his monitor or hum of his console even for an instant. In short: This ad doesn't flatter anyone.

But hey, don't you worry your pretty little corporate head about this, ASUS. I've got your back. I made a few changes to your ill-conceived little ad, and I think they're all vast improvements...