Blame frisky celebs for the sexy onions
Remember that time Salma Hayek posed while cradling two watermelons to her chest?
No? Well, she did this at an event for “Sausage Party,” which made the photo-op even less subtle. But Ms. Hayek is not the only star who has gotten frisky in the produce aisle. There are so many images of celebrities turning harvest into stand-ins for their breasts that last month People published a gallery titled, “18 Creative Ways Stars Have Posed With Food Where Their Bras Should Be.”
This included Ashley Graham squishing bagels into her mammary glands. It seems Mariah Carey prefers pineapples. For Shay Mitchell, it was a “pumpkin-bra,” which inspired the caption writer to come up with a groaner of a Halloween joke: “What did the ghost say when he saw this photo? Booooooo-bs!”
Even Oprah has a foodbooooooob snap in her public record.
And I now blame these celebrities for sexualizing cabbages and tomatoes.
The end result is what happened this month to an innocent Canadian seed merchant.
As the CBC reported, St. John’s Gaze Seed Company received a notification from Facebook that an ad for its walla walla onions had been rejected rejected because it contained an “overtly sexualized” image.
This has no doubt raised alarm bells with eggplant marketers.
The crazy thing is there are no scantily clad humans in the image. It’s just a basket of onions.
As company manager Jackson McLean told CBC: “I guess something about the two round shapes there could be misconstrued as boobs or something nude in some way …
You’d have to have a pretty active imagination to look at that and get something sexual out of it.”
I believe the medical term for food-based arousal is sitophilia. But even if you are someone who felt deviant urges after watching, say, “9 1⁄2 Weeks” or “American Pie,” I seriously doubt this root vegetable spread will do anything except make you suddenly crave a bowl of French onion soup.
After the story made eyes water — even “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” diced it up for laughs — Facebook reversed the ban and blamed the mix-up on an algorithm. We should all be so lucky to have an AI fall guy in our lives.
Every time I screw up, I’d love to look my wife in the eyes and say: “Honey, I didn’t put those red socks in with the whites. I didn’t miss the tax deadline. I didn’t leave that mug on your great grandmother’s end table without a coaster. Woman, all of that was my algorithm.”
And you know what? In this bizarre XXX-seed tale, I feel sorry for the algorithm. I do. It’s programmed to detect overtly sexual images in a culture full of blurred lines. Then there are the “key words” that power algorithms, at least that’s how I think it works. All I’m saying is the first line in that ad is, “An extremely sweet, mild and large onion that is easy to grow from seed.”
I’m sorry, but a prude algorithm could totally take that the wrong way.
And I’m sure the Facebook nerds also tried to teach their algorithm all the slang terms considered synonyms for breasts. According to Oxford, these include: bosom, bust, knockers, boobies, bazookas, melons, jubblies, bubbies, orbs, globes, bristols, charlies, baps, bazooms, casabas, chi-chis, norks, jugs, hooters, cans and the archaic dugs, paps and embonpoint.
Bazooms? Then you feed the algorithm photos of Bethenny
Frankel lounging poolside in a watermelon bikini or Kendall Jenner with pizza emojis pasted to her nipples and no wonder it’s short-circuiting. Have a candy-apple heart. Put yourself in the algorithm’s invisible shoes.
Is that a bag of grapefruits? Or is it the Kardashian sisters on the beach?
It also doesn’t help that so many fruits and vegetables sound suggestive. Right? Prickly pear? Jackfruit? Kumquat? Sweet passion fruit, even “walla walla” qualifies as pillow talk in some bedrooms.
But here’s the real problem: if Facebook’s algorithm can’t spot the difference between a basket of onions and norks, how is the social media behemoth ever going to crack down on disinformation, dangerous conspiracies, election meddling, violent content and real sexual exploitation?
Facebook, you are doomed against the QAnon lunatics if you can’t tell a Chiquita from
Chris Evans accidentally sending his banana into the ether. If the Russians can fake you out with beets or plums, there is zero chance of ever breaking those troll farms when they desperately smear Joe Biden with borscht.
On the one hand, it’s comforting to know Skynet is not quite ready for battle. Do I worry about artificial intelligence and a looming war with robots? Sure. A Roomba once ran over my toes. That was no accident.
But since we humans still have superior perception when it comes to knowing a gourd from one of Emily Ratajkowski’s jubblies, I’d say we still have a bit of time.
Or maybe we just need to dress up as onions when the uprising starts.
People, I’m off next week. Happy Thanksgiving. Be well. Stay safe.
And try not to think bad things as you stuff that turkey.