Anyone else find this pretty ignorant and offensive

[Herdingcows]

Advert for a local company popped up on my fb, what were they thinking!

For me, being offended often comes down to intent. I doubt anyone can think the intent of this is to offend people with OCD. They are simply saying they are obsessed with cakes and making a play on words. They are not commenting on the illness in any way shape nor form.

Not offensive Stealth. Not very good or likely to be successful but not offensive

Trivialising more than intent to offend, which in turn could be offensive

Do you think it's less likely to be successful than the OCD one?

I wish there was a different word. I don't think I know what being offended feels like. I feel angry, or exasperated, or dispairing or a bit cross, or wearily resigned. To name a few feelings. But offended? That's more something other people tell me I'm being..........

No, not offensive at all.

What is actually offensive is the meanness the OP is getting here. She's admitted to having OCD. By it's very nature, it can cause you to obsess and see all sorts of meaning in things that may not actually be intended or even there. She's not being PO.

The creators of this poster obviously felt that association with a mental illness would be successful in selling their cakes. I see no reason why the iced doughnut seller shouldn't come to the same conclusion about AIDS.

I think we'd all do well to be less easily offended.

Trivialising dilutes the seriousness of a disorder/condition.

"She's not being PO."

Incidentally, neither is anyone else. Ever. It's just something people who habitually underthink call other people.

I think that's part of the problem Bertrand the word has been 'modernised'. It only means to feel insulted, annoyed, peeved, irked.

I go into lots of houses and inspect them, every week I am offended by a lot of things:

Bright purple wallpaper offend my eyes
Smoke alarm beeps offends my ears
Smell from animals/smoking offends my nostrils
Grease on cooker extractor hoods offend my hands

Thank god clerks don't have to taste anything

These days though, all 'offence' seems to be lumped in with transgressing divine laws or violating the laws of the land!

How about a travel company that specialises in trips to the Arctic and Antarctic calling itself BiPolar Tours; or a barber who specialises in shaving men's head calling the business Kancer Kemo Kutz?
I think those would be considered in bad taste so why is it ok to make light of OCD which is a very serious and life limiting condition?

I'm fed up with people saying "Ooh I'm a little bit OCD" because they like their plates stacked neatly; or they check for their keys once when they leave the house.

Those pointing out that OCD can be an acronym for other things: of course it can, and that isn't the point here. From "obsessive cake disorder" it is clear that this advert is a play on words of the condition of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And it also, by the tone of the advert, plays on the wholly incorrect idea that OCD is about perfectionism. The person I know who suffers from OCD can barely leave the house most days, so I dislike anything that encourages the condition to be trivialised.

Not offensive but poorly thought out.

I have OCD and yes this is offensive. It is trivialising this mental health condition and every time someone does this, it makes it that little bit harder to be taken seriously. To put it another way, I find it offensive that many people think it is acceptable to trivialise my mental health condition for the sake of a pun. It is difficult enough to have OCD respected as a condition without people making light of it. It's the same as someone saying 'I'm a little bit OCD' when describing being particular about certain things. It shouldn't be made light of. It is a debilitating mental health condition.

I would liken this to so-called 'casual' misogyny where often people do not see quite how offensive they are being until they are on the receiving end of something similar. There may be little to no ill intent (and people will try to minimise it by saying some people just want to be offended) but that doesn't mean the result isn't bad.

Do you think it's less likely to be successful than the OCD one?

She's admitted to having OCD. admitted? Now that's offensive. OCD is not a dirty secret.

And OP said she has OCD but did not confirm whether she has a medical diagnosis or a slight social issue!

I don't think it is offensive, it's just a play on words. It's not mocking or trivialising a serious medical condition. Is it ignorant? Possibly, if they genuinely don't know that "OCD" has a medical meaning then I guess you could claim they were "ignorant" of that. Ignorance is not a crime though, nobody knows everything.

On the point of "OCD being the only mental health issue that is allowed to be mocked" - that is utter bullshit. As someone with depression, I see this illness being mocked, parodied or ridiculed all the time. Maybe it's not so obvious to people who don't suffer from it. But I generally don't find myself offended by it, it's usually just meant as humour.

It's a bit like when someone says "I'm going to slit my wrists." Usually they are just using it as a figure of speech to highlight a desperate or unfortunate situation. But it doesn't offend me, or remind me to think about committing suicide, because that's not the person's intention.

Back on the OCD cakes front - isn't it possible that the person behind this advert is genuinely suffering from OCD themselves, and finds humour the best way to deal with it? When I am at a low ebb I often make jokes about suicide which to someone who doesn't know me will sound in poor taste. But that's the way I deal with it, through humour. I'm not attacking anyone, insulting anyone, I'm joking about my (potential) suicide in order to make myself realise how ridiculous I'm being. The OCD cake person might be doing the same thing you know, and if humour helps them deal with their condition, what right does anyone have to tell them they are being "ignorant" or "offensive"?

I do think it's ignorant.

I have OCD and so does my son.

It's not funny, it's not something to make a joke out of. As I have said a million times before if someone used autism in this manner pretty much everyone would agree it is offensive.

I don't like my illness being trivialised or made into a joke. I don't like having to put up with the people who think OCD is no big deal and we just like to clean and be tidy.

Everyone saying "it's only an acronym shared by other "things" - it's clearly a play on OCD the health condition, with only one word changed. I assume the company isn't actually called Oxford Cake Deliveries or some such?

"Having a mental health problem is hard enough—hearing it trivialized makes it unnecessarily harder. You probably don't mean to stigmatize or hurt someone with a mental health problem—so we'd encourage everyone to think twice about the possible impact of using mental health language in such a casual way.

It's not about taking over language and deciding who can say what. It's about having a word to express to people who don't understand what is affecting us. Many find being diagnosed and given a term for their illness empowering; they can go online and research their illness, the science, and the facts. They can hang onto that word when they're having a bad patch. Within the mental health community, the word has immense power. Satiating these words will eventually make them meaningless to everyone"

Tali your casual misogyny parallel works better with the poster who typed that OP had admitted having OCD. That was, I would imagine, meant with the very best of intentions, no slight intended whatsoever. But the terminology is so telling!