No More Mr Potato Head it is gender neutral
 

NEW YORK (AP) — Mr. Potato Head is no longer a mister.

Hasbro, the company that makes the potato-shaped plastic toy, is giving the spud a gender neutral new name: Potato Head. The change will appear on boxes this year.

Many toymakers have been updating their classic brands in recent years, hoping to relate to today's kids and reflect more modern families.

“It’s a potato,” said Ali Mierzejewski, editor in chief at toy review site The Toy Insider. “But kids like to see themselves in the toys they are playing with.”

Barbie, for example, has shed its blonde image and now comes in multiple skin tones and body shapes. Thomas the Tank Engine added more girl characters. And American Girl is now selling a boy doll.

As part of the rebranding, Hasbro will release a new Potato Head playset this fall that will let kids create their own type of families, including two moms or two dads. The Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head characters will live on in some form, Hasbro said, but didn't provide details. Both have appeared in the “Toy Story" movies.

Dropping the “Mr.” from its name could encourage other companies to stop assigning genders to its toys, a trend that has already been happening, said Mierzejewski. Barbie maker Mattel released a gender-neutral doll line in 2019. But Mr. Potato Head is one of the biggest brands to do so.

“It’s setting this new standard," Mierzejewski said.

Mr. Potato Head first hit the toy scene in 1952, when it didn’t even come with a plastic potato — kids had to supply their own vegetable to poke eyes, a nose or mustache into. Hasbro, which also makes Monopoly and My Little Pony, bought the brand and eventually added a plastic potato.

https://news.yahoo.com/mister-no-mor...163741315.html

I sincerely hope I die before some genius in marketing eventually rebrands "He-Man" as "It-Person".

better watch out X-men might become X-persons :lol:

literally just a PR move to get people talking about Mr Potato head, who cares, the version I had as a kid included tons of stuff to make a Ms or Mr, it was "gender neutral" as a kid, they just have this big press release for points people will talk about it and it'll generate more money for them. Literally non-news and their strategy worked since this thread would not be here otherwise. You fell for their marketing trap.

Oh, look, it's the Patron Saint of Bad Opinions, over here telling people not to have opinions. :lol:

Didn't they also have a Ms. Potato Head? Seems smarter to sell one to the girl and one to the boy. The great thing about Mr Potato head is he can transition at the pop and snap of body part.
Very modern.

Toy Story is going to have to do some retconning now.

Hasbro Backtracked

Hasbro
@Hasbro
Hold that Tot – your main spud, MR. POTATO HEAD isn’t going anywhere! While it was announced today that the POTATO HEAD brand name & logo are dropping the ‘MR.’ I yam proud to confirm that MR. & MRS. POTATO HEAD aren’t going anywhere and will remain MR. & MRS. POTATO HEAD

They just clarified because of all the clickbait articles, they didn't backtrack anything since the characters are not going anywhere just changing the name of the brand, I had to watch the investors meeting at work and got the press releases emailed to me.

I mean, if they were more crafty about it they could just sell the plastic potato by itself (maybe with a basic set of feet), casually escaping any screams and finger pointing from the public, and then sell all the other parts in various accessory sets and do a line of parts as blind bags, and jack up the profit as a result.

Okay, but now I want it because that's hilarious.

Me when people make excessive use of bad puns:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6f/72...77e9d451fc.gif

*Bangs head on keyboard*

I am so sick of stuff like this! It's a darn toy! Children can use their own imaginations to make it whatever. Oh well, just rename it to "Potato Head"....:PHm, trying to sing the theme replacing the "He-Man" with "It-Person" doesn't work for me... lol

"...Kringer became the mighty Battle Cat and I became It-Person, the most powerful person in the Universe!":P

This is what happens when an entire generation of kids got trophies just for showing up and were told that they are all uniquely special. You get an ambiguous potato head - you know... the important things for children.

Why are the Turtles male? Does that matter?

"We shouldn't see gender or race! They're all the same and absolutely equal in every way!"

The same people: "Gender is super important and the differences should be celebrated! And kids should be able to decide theirs at age 3. Also, we need affirmative action in all jobs and things so people can be given stuff based on the color of their skin instead of the most qualified people for the job!"

Dumb.

how do you guys have the spare energy to muster up even the slightest bit of care or outrage about this?

In Italy "potato" is a female word ("patata") and it is used to playfully refer to the external female sex organs in a very similar way to how you english speaking folks use the word "pussy".

Dumbest reason this wasn't needed... is because Mrs. Potato Head has been a thing since 1953 (according to Wikipedia). Only one year after the original Mr. that hit the market in 1952.

If it had been one sided all this time after almost 70 years then that might be a different story. I don't really care what this brand does, but it's kind of annoying that this sort of thing is looked at where it isn't really needed, not where it is. There are other properties/brands aimed at kids that are pretty much gender neutral, yet still lopsided, that would be far more worth taking a look at, or have been in recent years.


Now I'm wondering how it was/is marketed there, because that sounds pretty awkward. lol

Nothing special I guess. As far as I know it has always been called Mr. Potato here as well, so the link with the italian female word is lost.

This is not really a talking point on the left anymore. Maybe a decade or so ago but modern consensus is that actively avoiding race/gender is actually detrimental to disparities in minority groups. Gender and race should be recognized and studied as they are important social constructs that shape many people's lives.

Even disregarding race/gender, the job market is not a meritocracy. People get jobs all the time for things outside of actual skillsets. You'd be hard pressed to find any job where only the best people are hired.

I'm not about to get angry over a corporate potato.

If people are not allowed to get irrationally angry over things of absolutely zero consequence, then we may as well just go ahead and shut down the entire Internet. :lol:

"Studied and recognized" is different from "hiring and evaluating people based solely on their race / gender traits".
At this point left has become even more racist than people they constantly blame on racism, what with constant infalitization of "minorities" and vile and toxic rhetoric surrounding white people and those who dare to disagree with them.

And this is why we must create another set of categories to make it even harder for people to find a decent job. Amazing solution!

When you are in school you are there to learn this big, blanket statement sort of discipline. "Business". "Psychology". Etc.

When I was doing my Masters degree I found that the most interesting pieces of information where these little, sort-of experiential things that someone would say, or those usually unspoken info nuggets that truly clue people in to a method or a culture.

There were many I picked up that I thought were extremely telling, wise and insightful. For example, a very high-level economics guy distilling the entire thing down to the truth which should not be judged negatively - "capitalism is people doing good things for selfish reasons". A nugget that anyone smart understands and is okay with immediately while anyone who is an emotional midget would flip out about. You can't change the truth and sometimes the truth is actually fine even if their is "negative content".

And so, directly to your point, another nugget was that "we hire and fire for attitude". So much revealing truth in that statement and how it speaks to the ******** of the workforce.

But this? This is hard to "agree" with per se. It just comes off as semantics - as if you can broadcast the superior high-road as you evaluate more important things. Now hang in there before you go "keyboard warrior" on me... Because what that does now, mostly not because of you but instead the current social environment, is put on everybody's radar the next time something offends you and how it will be a measure of ridiculousness against this statement.

See, we have been living in a society of people who are "opportunistically offended" or even worse actually offended and act like a crime was committed when someone made their head-math go in that direction.

It's a disingenuous lie and the irony? The irony of it all is that this ridiculous potato head things is endemic of the actual problem. And so, nobody actually cares about the potato as much as they care about yet another example of the fools of planet Earth having an impact on something tried and true that was never a problem to begin with.

Understand? The knee-jerk reaction of most "people of the internet" is to argue points, but you should give what I'm saying here some consideration for a moment before you do.

To the elite, anyone ok with this are corporate potatoes.

wait, what?
 

I agree that making potatohead gender neutral is pretty extreme and stupid, but not surprising considering everything that’s been happening lately with cancel culture i.e. killing off Aunt Jemima because of her skin color etc

however, the OP of this thread is a diehard Trump-hating biden supporter, so I would think radical liberals would be on board with anything and everything “cancel culture” and gender neutral, right? i.e. biden allowing trans to compete in women’s sports.

Isn’t this what you voted for?

I'm a person of color and I find it ironic that the ones who get outraged over stuff like this are those who aren't. There was nothing wrong with Aunt Jemima. IMO, if the company wanted to make amends or whatever, they should've just paid money to the families of the women that originally depicted her.If you're referring to the equality act, sports I don't think is included there. It's mainly just so that those who are of the LGBTQ communities are not discriminated against when it comes to education, housing, jobs, etc., like other groups of people. Nothing wrong with that, and it's pretty lame that it's taken this long and that there's a need for that to begin with.

I believe Trans people should not be descrimated against for housing, jobs or education I am for that, but I think they should not be in womans sports. That should be left to biological females. Gender is different from biological. Everything is changing under liberal snowflakes in wanting to cater to what like 2% of the population. They are forcing these upon people and when you firce anything unto someone expect to be pushed back.

Once again, there is nothing about sports included in the bill. It's only for the stuff I mentioned and a few other things, but the playing of sports isn't anywhere in it. That aside, usually for team sports, you have to try out for them.

As for trans athletes...I think it really should depend on the sport. Growing up, in school, we played coed sports in gym class from elementary school all the way up into high school. Stuff like tennis or volleyball or soccer or or kickball or badminton or archery or maybe even golf and sports like those, it doesn't really matter, I feel if someone trans male or trans female is a part of it. There are other sports that come to mind too, like figure skating, roller hockey, gymnastics, baseball (something else that we did coed in gym class), skateboarding, etc., where it really doesn't matter, imo.

Sports I *would* have an issue with is traditional wrestling (although, to be fair, that's based on weight class so that may be in a gray area as there are women strong enough to wrestle men), boxing, MMA, football (well, some college team iirc has a female kicker now, forgot which), swimming, rugby, competitive dodge ball (it can be brutal, but even with a women's team, the ball is heavy), track and field, etc., I don't think a trans person should be on those types of teams and should be kept separate. In school, we did play football with the boys, but not regular football. We only played flag football to have as little contact as possible. It was fun.

Edit: Decided to look it up again.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-...se-bill/5/text

Nope, nothing about trans people playing sports or people being forced to let them play anywhere in there, unless I somehow overlooked it. It seems for stuff like that, it'll all be up to the one who's actually running the sport and if there are try outs for said sport and they fail it, then oh well.

They fail it and watch as they'll cry about how they didn't get in because they are trans and forget how much they suck at the sport. It'll happen just of matter of when and will be put on the team to appease the masses.

isn’t that already happening tho? (transgenders competing in women’s sports). seems that the left is pushing to legitimize and normalize it, cause that’s one of their main priorities. been going on for a while now with trans track athletes breaking women’s records and many other sports. even a few years ago there was a mma fighter named “fallon fox” who was born male, then decided to transition and identify as female and was fighting against women! yup, a grown ass man beating up women. that’s just wrong, idc who is offended. hell even this thread title comes off as misleading clickbait trying to normalize “gender neutrality” then Hasbro soon had to clarify their actions.

and Hasbro will soon need to change it’s company name as it ends in “bro” which refers to masculinity/male/brother, because someone out there is offended by that word since it’s not gender neutral, I just know it!

Maybe we’ll get Trans-formers: Robots aren’t just Guys. :lol: I’m sorry I couldn’t help myself. I have nothing against trans people. Just thought it was funny.

I really don’t care if they did drop the Mr. and Mrs. name.

No.
Transition doesn't change bone density and body structure. So men will be stronger and capable of taking more damage than women, which creates a potential danger for women, no matter what sport.

And in general, including male pretenders into women sports is ridiculously disrespective for women who trained for years, only to excluded for mentally ill people who did very little to earn anything.