Advertising for yoga classes: you’re doing it wrong. Unfortunately, the yearly 9/11 anniversary inevitably gets exploited in some distasteful way, but we somehow least expected it (or would like to least expect it) from a yoga studio. However, a Bikram studio in Arlington, Virginia did not get the memo, and went ahead with promoting their “9+11=20% off” Patriot Day sale, which, suffice it to say, was NOT well received. The studio owner tweeted out the reminder to everyone yesterday and Twitter turned around and freaked right out, as one might have expected.
The tweet has since been deleted, but not before the internet screengrabbed it. The studio has also issued an apology (update: it has been deleted from facebook, but remains on twitter).
How could a yoga studio of all places be so insensitive and tacky? The tweeter, studio co-owner Frank Machnick, acknowledged the tweet was a mistake, but he doesn’t really get that a 9/11 promotion could be that different from any other promotion on a national holiday. His wife and co-owner, Zahra Vaezi, agrees.
“We do Valentine’s Day promotions. And Valentine’s Day, if you think about it, is connected to a massacre,” Vaezi, said, referring to the 1929 gangland shooting in Chicago that left eight mobsters dead.
Machnick went on to explain away the situation by saying he had a case of “yoga brain.” Yoga brain or not, it was a pretty dumbass thing to do, Frank. But we all do dumb things sometimes. Let’s just all please see this as a lesson on how not to promote your yoga business.
Here’s a handy guide for the future:
For AT&T, that golf course, and others, here is my FREE ‘Should I make a 9/11 ad?’ flowchart: pic.twitter.com/8zt6AvzCrw
— Bryan Joiner (@bryanjoiner) September 11, 2013
[Via Slate]
Where’ve ya been for the previous 12 anniversaries 0f 9/11 in New York City (or the rest of America)?
Oh, I get it …
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and 9/11 comparison? I think there are many folks who have no idea about the first mentioned. I don’t think there is anyone of “age” who doesn’t know about 9/11. Massacre of gangsters, massacre of innocents. I don’t see it. It is a sad day when commercialism involving yoga can be so misguided. Don’t make excuses. It was not a sensitive thing to do.
Ignorance is regarding the impermanent as permanent, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant and the non-Self as the Self. II:5 The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali