The consumer goods giant announced Tuesday that it would no longer use the term to describe certain physical characteristics on its packaging for beauty and personal care products, which include Rexona deodorants and Sunsilk shampoos.
The company says the move “comes as global research into people’s experiences of the beauty industry reveals that using ‘normal’ to describe hair or skin makes most people feel excluded.”
Unilever(UL) is one of the world’s biggest retail suppliers, with 2.5 billion customers in more than 190 countries.
in a statement, it said that a recent study it commissioned and conducted found that “seven in ten [respondents] agree that using the word ‘normal’ on product packaging and advertising has a negative impact. For younger people — those aged 18-35 — this rises to eight in ten.”
More than half of those surveyed also said that “they now pay more attention to a company’s stance on societal issues before buying products,” Unilever added.
“With one billion people using our beauty and personal care products every day, and even more seeing our advertising, our brands have the power to make a real difference to people’s lives,” Sunny Jain, Unilever’s president of beauty and personal care, said in the company’s statement.
“We know that removing ‘normal’ from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone, but it is an important step forward.”
By the company’s own account, it still has more work to do.
Unilever also said Tuesday that it would no longer “digitally alter a person’s body shape, size, proportion or skin color in its brand advertising, and will increase the number of advertisements portraying people from diverse groups who are underrepresented.”
Businesses around the world have been increasingly rebranding in response to demands from customers to be more inclusive. Last year, many major companies renamed or retired products, including Quaker Oats with its Aunt Jemima brand in the United States and Nestlé with its Red Skins and Chicos sweets in Australia.
Unilever has been no exception. Last year, its Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, removed the word “Fair” from its “Fair & Lovely” skincare brand after complaints.
The company acknowledged in a statement at the time that it had previously played up “the benefits of fairness, whitening and skin lightening” while marketing its products. The brand is now called “Glow & Lovely.”
Competitors, including L’Oreal(LRLCF) and Johnson & Johnson(JNJ), also said they would rename or discontinue some of their skincare brands in India for similar reasons.
Unilever has worked to diversify its product lines by partnering with minority-run businesses in recent years. In 2017, for instance, the company made headlines for its acquisition of Sundial Brands, the Black-owned maker of SheaMoisture and other popular skin and hair care brands.
WhatsApp is rolling out support for voice and video calling to its desktop app, the Facebook-owned messaging service said Thursday, providing relief to countless people sitting in front of computers who have had to reach for their phone every time their WhatsApp rang.
For now, WhatsApp said its nearly five-year-old desktop app for Mac and Windows will only support one-to-one calls, but that it will be expanding this feature to include group voice and video calls “in the future.”
Video calls work “seamlessly” for both portrait and landscape orientation, and the desktop client is “set to be always on top so you never lose your video chats in a browser tab or stack of open windows,” the firm said, which began testing the feature with a small group of users on desktop late last year.
Speaking of which, support for voice and video calls is not being extended to WhatsApp Web, the browser version of the service, at the moment, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. (Facebook launched a dedicated desktop app for its Messenger service last year, which supports group video calls.)
The new feature support should come in handy to millions of people who use WhatsApp’s desktop client everyday and have had to use Zoom or Google Meet for one-to-one video calls on desktop partly because of convenience.
WhatsApp, used by more than 2 billion people, hasn’t shared how popular video and voice calls are on its platform, but said it processed over 1.4 billion calls on New Year’s Eve — the day usage tends to peak on the Facebook-owned platform.
Like the 100 billion messages that WhatsApp processes on its platform each day, voice and video calls are also end-to-end encrypted, it said.
Once known for taking quarters to push a feature improvement to its app, WhatsApp has visibly grown more aggressive with adding new features in the past year. In late January, Facebook added opt-in biometric fingerprint, face or iris scan authentication for WhatsApp on desktop and the web, an additional protection layer that makes more sense after today’s update.
It rolled out ephemeral messages, photos and videos that disappear after seven days late last year, and also rolled out its payments service in India, its biggest market by users.
The new feature additions come as WhatsApp is attempting to convince users to agree to its planned changes to privacy policy — which has received some heat on Twitter. Whether those concerns raised by a handful of people on Twitter extend to the larger population remains to be seen.
Early Stage is the premier “how-to” event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear firsthand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, legal, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in — there’s ample time included in each for audience questions and discussion.
Vanessa Bryant caught wind not everyone had nice things to say about her late husband, Kobe, upon his death … including Evan Rachel Wood, who labeled him a “rapist.”
Kobe’s widow is skewering ERW and others for comments they made about Kobe shortly after his passing in Jan. 2020 — many of whom brought up his 2003 sexual assault case … arguing his legacy was marred by the allegations, and straight-up calling him guilty.
For the record, the criminal charges he was facing were dropped after the accuser refused to testify. She later sued him over it, and both sides reached a settlement.
Of course, Kobe was never convicted … and is presumed innocent in the eyes of the law — which is exactly what Vanessa points out to ERW, in sharp terms more than a year later.
She writes … “Your false, insensitive, defamatory and slanderous tweet on 1/26/20 is vile and disturbing to say the least? Behavior like this is part of the reason why innocent black men go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit. An accusation doesn’t make someone guilty.”
VB adds, “YOU DON’T KNOW THE FACTS OF THE CASE.” She had a similar message for film producer Abigail Disney, who also called Kobe a rapist not too long after he died.
I haven’t said anything about Kobe so far because I felt some time needed to pass before weighing in. But yes, it’s time for the sledgehammer to come out. The man was a rapist. Deal with it. https://t.co/9jfZHSqnnQ
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) January 29, 2020
@abigaildisney
Abigail still has her 2020 tweet up — which links to a WaPo op-ed discussing Kobe’s criminal case. Evan’s Twitter account appears to have been deactivated. She still has an IG account though, where she’s been detailing her allegations against Marilyn Manson.
Neither women have responded to Vanessa’s criticism.
The rapper is facing backlash after calling Jojo Siwa a “b*tch” on his “Beat Box” freestyle.
SpottemGottem’s “Beat Box” is arguably the hottest record out right now. It’s been climbing up the charts, thanks to the success of its viral Junebug Challenge and its subsequent remix with Pooh Shiesty. People like Kevin Hart, Saweetie, and more have taken the challenge to new heights while a few of hip-hop’s top guys tackle the production.
The latest being DaBaby who initially previewed a remix to “Beat Box” on Instagram Live before unleashing the music video and song the day after. DaBaby snaps on the record, tearing the beat up with punchlines and slick flows over the course of two minutes. However, it’s DaBaby and there are not too many things that he’s willing to hold his tongue about. For example, he gave Spottem Gottem a shout-out but didn’t fail to bring up the snitching allegations. “Shout out to Spottem We Gottem/ Even though he a rat but he shot ’em,” raps DaBaby on the record.
The line is mild compared to what people are enraged about today. A clip surfaced on the Internet of one bar in particular from Baby where he seemingly takes aim at YouTube personality, Jojo Siwa. Why? No one knows. As he slides through with a barrage of bars, he refers to Siwa as a bitch which got a few people upset.
“Got a big .45 on decock Usin’ big words like I’m T.I. Don’t wanna get me started, n***a Turn me up, n***as gon’ see why N***a, you a bitch, JoJo Siwa (Bitch)”
A few people thought it was funny but DaBaby immediately found himself under fire for this one line in particular. Many thought it was weird that he would go after a 17-year-old while others compared her net worth to his, as well as their heights. According to Google, Jojo Siwa is 5’9″ while DaBaby stands at 5’7″.
Check out some of the funniest responses below and check out Baby’s “Beat Box” freestyle above.
“That wasn’t Trump people,” Shirkey said of the January 6 riots in a video taken in a restaurant.
“That’s been a hoax from day one, that was all pre-arranged,” Shirkey said, asserting that rioters “went in on separate buses, that was all arranged by somebody that was funding everyone.”
“Why wasn’t there more security? It was ridiculous, it was all staged,” he continued, before pointing to conspiracy theories that Republican leadership — including Senate Minority Mitch McConnell — were somehow involved, and questioning how and why some casualties occurred or were recorded.
Footage from the January 6 insurrection clearly indicates that many participants wore Donald Trump-themed clothing and filmed their actions themselves, and law enforcement officials have detailed the various communicative failures that contributed to how the federal response unfolded.
The recorded encounter with Shirkey occurred on February 3 at Spangler’s Family Restaurant in Jonesville, Michigan, said Hillsdale County Republican Party Secretary Jon Smith, who told CNN that he posted the video on his personal YouTube page. “I didn’t trust him to be honest with me and I wanted to expose his lies and I might need it to keep it for my own record,” Smith said of his reason to film Shirkey.
The Metro Times in Detroit first reported on Shirkey’s comments.
In a statement Tuesday, Shirkey acknowledged the video tape was legitimate and apologized for his comments.
“I said some things in a videoed conversation that are not fitting for the role I am privileged to serve,” he said. “I own that. I have many flaws. Being passionate coupled with an occasional lapse in restraint of tongue are at least two of them.”
He continued, “I regret the words I chose, and I apologize for my insensitive comments.”
The remarks come as the FBI and other Department of Justice law enforcement agencies continue to track down and prosecute dozens of those involved in the siege of the Capitol that killed five people, including a Capitol Police officer. More than 200 had been charged as of Tuesday afternoon.
Participants so far have hailed from a variety of states, and some have been linked to far-right groups. Active military personnel and veterans are over-represented among the first 150 people to be arrested and have records released for federal offenses in the violence and insurrection at the US Capitol, according to an analysis by CNN of Pentagon records and court proceedings.
With Matthew Stafford off the trade block and headed to the Rams, the eyes of QB-hungry general managers have turned to another QB who could be available: Carson Wentz.
Sources say that teams have begun calling the Eagles on their former starter Wentz, plotting a roadmap for a potential trade as teams get closer to the start of the league year.
The Eagles are not in a hurry to trade Wentz — and in fact as of now intend for him to return for 2021 under new coach Nick Sirianni — but they did field the calls and discussed the issue. GM Howie Roseman will almost always listen, and this is no different.
While Stafford went to the Rams (in principle) in exchange for two future first-round picks, a third-rounder and Jared Goff, it’s unclear what the price would be for Wentz. But it would have to be enough to make it worth it for the Eagles to trade someone who would otherwise factor heavily into their starting QB conversation.
As for teams interested in Wentz, the Colts are always linked to him because of their need at QB and because of coach Frank Reich. They will call on all the available passers this offseason. There are others.
Wentz signed a four-year, $128 million extension in June of 2019, and because of the way it’s structured, a release is nearly impossible. But a trade before his $10 million roster bonus is due on March 19 would give the Eagles a more manageable dead money charge of $33.8 million, while a new team would take on $25.4 million in salary — and a four-year, $98.4 million existing contract.
Wentz and his agents have not yet formally requested a trade, according to sources, though it’s clear his relationship with the team has been strained over the past year and it will require more communication to mend it. The team’s firing of Doug Pederson, who benched Wentz in favor of Jalen Hurts this season, did not quell all of Wentz’s concerns, sources say.
With Stafford and Goff off the table, the supply of veteran QBs actually available dwindled rapidly, perhaps increasing Wentz’s value. About his quarterbacks recently, Sirianni said he has two “top-notch” QBs in Wentz and Hurts.
Asked if Wentz will be on the roster in 2021, Sirianni said: “I can’t answer that.”
Sirianni said this week in an interview with SportsRadio 94 WIP in Philly the team is planning for open competition at all positions, including quarterback. That would seem to indicate it’ll be Wentz vs. Hurts in training camp — if Wentz is still a member of the team.
In a memorable section of his new book that made waves on social media after it was published on this website on Wednesday, veteran forward Jared Dudley explained why the Los Angeles Lakers took such exception to the Clippers — and Paul George in particular — during the NBA Bubble.
“We think it’s disrespectful for Paul George, who hasn’t won, to put himself on the level of Bron and AD. This motivates us,” Dudley and his co-author, Carvell Wallace, wrote in the Kindle book, “Inside the NBA Bubble: A Championship Season under Quarantine.”
The comments were the topic-du-jour on NBA Twitter for the day, and just about everyone had an opinion on them. And by the evening, they had made it to George himself, who was asked to comment after the Clippers beat the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday.
“God bless him. God bless you, Jared Dudley. I don’t know what it is. Dudes love throwing my name in stuff, but god bless you, Jared.”
Paul George when asked about Jared Dudley’s comments about him. #Clippers pic.twitter.com/wkCrLvnxGq
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) February 4, 2021
Funnily enough, “God bless Jared Dudley” was also my reaction when I read that passage, albeit maybe for different reasons.
But don’t worry Paul. We here at Silver Screen and Roll have a passion for service journalism, and so we put together a short list with a few of the reasons why NBA players like to throw your name in stuff.
As far as the Lakers go, I’d say this is likely what Dudley was referencing specifically.
A small thing? Perhaps, but as Dudley said today, NBA players look for motivation wherever they can find it.
I asked Jared Dudley what he’d say to someone who says he’s not good enough to say what he said about the Clippers. He spoke for around two minutes on his qualifications, and how the Lakers viewed what was said by the Clippers last year: pic.twitter.com/OP37KSGOyF
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) February 3, 2021
As far as why guys in the NBA as a whole would feel comfortable taking shots at you, well, there is the fact that you’ve come out on the losing end of pretty much every feud you’ve had with anyone in the league.
For example, there was this:
Which you chose to respond to by saying this corny shit, for some reason:
And then there was this evisceration, right before your Clippers blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Semifinals:
There was also, you know, the whole “blowing a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Semifinals culminating in this horrendous shot” thing:
So those are probably why your name keeps coming up, I’d say. So hopefully this helps, and yes, God bless Jared Dudley for another fun day on NBA Twitter.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
