Troubling advert for computer manufacturer, Lenovo

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This YouTube video has come up as an advert in the middle of other videos a couple of times for me today.

It features a teenager called ‘Oscar’ and ‘their’ Grandma, talking about Oscar’s online persona ‘Spider’.
The ad presents Oscar, Oscar’s Gender Identity and Oscar’s online world as a fantastic, shiny, glittery, modern thing that poor old past-it Granny just doesn’t understand.

The video has 2.9million views but only 80 ‘thumbs up’ reactions, so it seems that Lenovo have (thankfully) misjudged their audience…

This is a second video featuring the same teen that I found via link following from the first, it has far fewer views (ie it’s not being promoted as a paid ad or via an algorithm):

So now instead of just gender stereotyping, us poor old grannies are stereotyped as being thick, ignorant and old fashioned but we might just be able to talk about sewing!

The grannies I know are learning Spanish, travelling round the world, play tennis and have been using computers for 50 years. And also fighting for women’s rights and going to Greenham Common.
Think I’ll just stick with my MacBook Air.

The idea that (older) women are stupid when it comes to tech is a meme that irritates the hell out of me.

I hate hearing male tech podcasters and writers having a good laugh together about how their wives or their mums don't understand (or aren't interested in) software or technology; never a bloody word about their dads' ability to grok new-fangled gizmos.

Given that I'm an older women who is interested in various aspects of computers/tech, and always has been, this particular attitude among techbros annoys me greatly.

I used to fix common issues for my officemates because our IT Dept took so bloody long to come and fix things. It used to amaze the various young men who eventually turned up to fix things that I was able to explain issues to them and understand their answers - they'd look at me in amazement like I was a performing animal or something.

3 million views, 79 upticks and 15 downticks. There is a message for Lenovo in those numbers. Perhaps they need to build an AI bot to 'explain' that message to them?

I wrote my first computer programme in 1968. I reckon I have a little experience with tech by now.

I dislike a lot about current tech - the wastefulness of the hardware, the bloatedness of the software, the massive drain on resources caused by data centres, the style over function, the lack of resilience, the reinforcing of inequalities, the built-in obsolescence, not to mention the negative social effects of ubiquitous social media....

I have come to these conclusions from close familiarity with tech - 'a little experience' though not as long as yours, Exx, but I worked in tech for a decade and a bit, and keep up with the latest developments.

If I dare express any of that, I'm told I'm just an old Luddite who doesn't understand technology and who wants us all to be back living in caves - it's amazing how often 'back living in caves' comes up as a 'gotcha', like there's no middle ground between AI, Robots, or ..caves.

Ageism against old people is one of the acceptable isms these days. It's very noticeable that trans activists often say that it's only old people who are gender critical, so it's no big deal because they'll die out soon..

Maybe Lenovo are tapping into the zeitgeist that old folk are just temporary road blocks..

After several hugely unreliable work-issued Lenovo laptops, I vowed never to buy one myself.

This kind of advertising is certainly not inspiring me to reconsider that decision any more favourably...

@MarieDeGournay you are right about bloatedness etc. A long time ago DH helped develop an important government system, using assember to ensure speed and efficiency of some of its subroutines. The government department has attempted to "update" since, wasting millions of pounds on a project that had to be abandoned because it couldn't match the speed of the original - so the core of the system is still the original code written in 1984.
nb. I think I still have the first simple little programme I wrote somewhere - it was to calculate half-life of radioactivity - it's on a spool of paper tape. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/PaperTapes-5and8Hole.jpg/1920px-PaperTapes-5and8Hole.jpg

Someone should have ensured ‘Oscar’ wasn’t spending all her time online at such a young age.

I know this is derailing a bit but totally agree.

I am not overly tech savvy but phones and computers (and gaming) are a part of life, have been since we were young adults. It’s not some weird future world we can’t navigate just because we are middle aged women.

Those memes piss me off.

Young women should take note, this is exactly how you will be treated when you get older.

I dislike a lot about current tech - the wastefulness of the hardware, the bloatedness of the software, the massive drain on resources caused by data centres, the style over function, the lack of resilience, the reinforcing of inequalities, the built-in obsolescence, not to mention the negative social effects of ubiquitous social media....

My 18 year old, computer science student, DC would agree with you.

@UtopiaPlanitia "grok" - now there's a word that makes me smile, ever since I first read it eons ago in "Stranger in a Strange Land" and later realised Heinlein's invented word had entered the English vocabulary. I remember one of DH's programming colleagues using it in the early 1970s...

I recommend keeping that vow. I had one and I don't recommend the brand at all. I wouldn't buy one again.

The amount of human and planetary energy wasted on enabling a young person to avoid having a difficult conversation with their grandmother is horrific.

This is both creepy and, to me, very sad.

'Spider' isn't Oscar. Spider is somewhere off in the uncanny valley for me and doesn't look like a person. Oscar seems like a neurodivergent young woman who spends a lot of time online and feels misunderstood and an outsider. I was like that and I'm much closer to the grandmother's age than Oscar's. I'm glad there wasn't a way back then for me to create a virtual persona like that. It reminds me of the middle-aged TW presenting their 'cute anime girl' exceptionally heavily filtered and photoshopped pictures of themselves online and deluding themselves into thinking that's what others see when they look at them.

Oscar and her grandmother sitting down and having a chat about how Oscar feels and what she does online might have been a way of bringing them together. Especially if done in a way where the grandmother is allowed to have opinions and not just act as Oscar's out-of-touch support human there to be 'educated' and agree with everything.

This is just layers of fake.

'k, and we're done with that brand....

'Grok' is such a good word (useful concept) and a lot more widely known now than when I was a kid reading Heinlein books from the local library - we can at least thank computer programmers for spreading its use into the wider geekosphere :D

But the Lenovo ad worries me - kids investing so much of their time and effort and emotional stability in online avatars worries me. It does seem the lines between reality and the internet blur for some kids (and adults, if I'm being honest).

I agree. It’s probably just part of the general “old women are stupid and past it” trope but IT is particularly bad for this.
It’s ridiculous to think older people aren’t or can’t be IT savvy. Which generation do they think invented computers and the internet to start with? My mother worked on computers in the 1950s, when the computer filled half a room and the input was punched cards. She had a real aptitude for it.
At home I’m the family IT support person. DH is utterly clueless and I’m always fixing things for him or explaining how to do it.

You rock.

I came on to mention my MiL who is periodically asked to come out of retirement to interpret FORTRAN and COBOL code she wrote in the 1960s and 70s.

Oscar could do with a lot less time online rather than more and would definitely benefit from more exposure to real people and real life.

Young people need to remember who invented this stuff in the first place

I say this as a young person realising this

What happened to just writing your parents/grandparents a note if you were too adolescently- embarrassed to say something out loud?

The whole thing is totally unnecessary (corporate exploitation of human vulnerability dressed up in fashionable IDPOL language) and incredibly sad (this nana clearly loves you whatever you call yourself).

The side order of ‘Educating the old lady’ gives me secondhand embarrassment.