New App Makes It Easier to Publicly Call Out Sexist Crap

With the Super Bowl only a few super short days away, marketers are gearing up to unload the big guns: their Super Bowl ads. If this year is like every previous year, some of those ads will prominently feature tired sexist tropes that would be outdated even in a smoky rooms full of Roger Sterlings. But now, rather than roll your eyes in silence while choking back your feelings with artichoke dip, you can do something about it with a handy app that makes bullshit calling highly efficient — and social — activity.

The #NotBuyingIt app, presented by The Representation Project, is a free download from iTunes that allows users to tweet about ads and other media that rubs them the wrong way, connect with others who were similarly rubbed the wrong way, browse ads that led other users to air their frustration on social media, sign petitions urging businesses responsible for the wrong way rubbing to reconsider their marketing strategy, and even search for ways a particular company has fucked up in the past. In addition, the app allows users to screen grab ads and stamp them with #NotBuyingIt. Imagine if someone put all of the advertising fuckery into a library that’s instantly accessible from your Apple-manufactured device. It’s kind of like that. Bonus: it looks pretty, too.

But #NotBuyingIt isn’t all sticks and no carrots; stereotype-shattering ads can be praised just as crappy ones can be scolded with the app’s #MediaWeLike hashtag and corresponding stamp.

The #NotBuyingIt hashtag is far from new; according to a woman who is working with the app’s launch, vigilant internet users caused the tag to trend during the Super Bowl last year and the year before, and some companies have opted change their ways (GoDaddy, for example, has vowed to avoid its trademark brand of inscrutable sexism this year).