Untalented-but-overpaid person Ashton Kutcher is the new spokesperson for Popchips. To celebrate their new union, the company had Kutcher make a racist commercial that has nothing to do with their product.
The commercial is a spoof of a dating video, with Kutcher playing a variety of “characters” like a real actor might attempt. The blatantly racist depiction of an Indian man — “a Bollywood producer” — caused the company to pull the ad from TV. But if you watch the ad, it’s also hard to see what the joke is supposed to be.
Finding the right chip is a lot like dating?
Dreadlocked people are weird?
Kim Kardashian is a dog?
Tech blogger Anil Dash was among the first to draw attention to the ad. On his blog:
I’ve always wanted to have very positive feelings about Ashton Kutcher — he’s a totally mainstream celebrity who seemed to have sincerely embraced the tech startup world that I spend so much of my time in, and that should be a validation of our impact. Then I saw this shit right here.
Popchips CEO Keith Belling issued a public apology on the company’s website, although he seems not to believe in capitalization. In fact, there’s not a single properly-capitalized word on the entire site. That might just be the real crime here.