Latinx is just reactionary dishonesty for profit.
Latino was first concocted as a way to undermine Chicano cohesion. The topic has already been explicitly tackled since 2006, with our personal contribution documented on the issue on 2014.
Today, marketing agencies and media alike are looking for a way to stay relevant with changing demographics and audiences. As such, they’ve promoted ‘Latinx’ to the maximal degree possible.
For instance, marketing agencies, like Remezcla or Mitu, depend on a massive amount of people identifying with generic ‘Latin’ themed nomenclature in order to sell things easier. Perhaps, the rationale is that if they directly use ‘Mexican’ or some related term, then they’ll be affirming an identity that goes contrary to normal business behaviour. If you’re a marketer, you have to find ways to engage US based individuals on commerce related terms so your corporate clients have confidence on social media campaign.
There’s no political dimension or intention. Just profit, marketing and perception management.
Marketers Masquerading as Magazines
In general, duplicitous ‘people of color’ themed agencies generally don’t want their young and emerging audiences to perceive them as a pesky marketer.
For instance, Remezcla presents themselves as primarily a media company, not a marketing agency, which makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint. To most people, Remezcla presents as a ‘magazine’. However, in front of investors, they present as a profitable marketing agency which is what they actually are both on paper as an LLC and to their acquiring company.
I suppose if one reveals their true intent as a marketer, then the gimmick is easier to see through. If a person knows they’re engaging with a marketer whose selling their social media usage patterns, then there would surely be no engagement. Thus, their ability to exploit social media trends is diminished since consumers of their content will understand the finality of liking a post on their IG is for the to learn how to fine tune messaging on a brands behalf, such as Target.
Brand Engagement: Target
Like any outsider, Target had an issue marketing to what they and marketers call ‘Latine’, but most people do not refer to themselves in these generic terms for one.
The intent of this marketing initiative was in Remezcla’s words: ‘identify a content and media perspective’ that would permit ‘ an opportunity to leverage media to support the marketing and community initiatives’ [people were] ‘passionate about’. despite the fact that Target cannot legitimately engage in anything a fictitious community could be impassioned about. Here’s a quote about how their content was purely meant for marketing purposes: “custom content was amplified in a diverse ecosystem that included a variety of formats on paid social placements on Instagram and Facebook, along with traditional media providing support with a 100% SOV Sitewide Takeover to align with content launch. Target brand messaging was seeded prior to content launch and provided supplemental media support throughout the entirety of the fight (video and display).”
And so, Target used the very conservative and assimilationist trend of ‘Hispanic Heritage Month’ and enlisted Remezcla staff to enhance their messaging.
Using Facebook and Instagram to drive the message, Remezcla advised Target to present their products as if they were made by the people they were hoping would buy them.
What was very curious about the brands on Target’s website was how many products, if not all, we’re either owned by white people or a large publicly traded company (which can not have an ethnic identity of any sort due to it being publicly traded). This could be why in the onset of their retrospective study, Remezcla noted that Target ‘did not want to seem like a mere paid sponsor’, but it most certainly only was just a paid sponsor per their own marketing materials.
According to Remezcla’s retrospective study, the Target campaign involved 100 million paid impressions across social media. An ‘impression’ on social media means that user’s eye literally glanced at the content on their feed long enough to create the glimmer of a thought. There’s big money on the business of turning people out of their culture and steering them into the loving arms of assimilationist consumerism, and Remezcla’s right in the middle of it.
Conclusion
Most people thing new terminology in traditional and commercial spaces is invented for their benefit. Quite the contrary, its invented to corral perception and get people to buy into whatever a marketer and business sell. Dumbing down cultures for commerical ventures can have dramatic consequences in the political space. When people are dumb enough to buy things on the basis of ‘Latin’ themed marketing, they can be tricked into voting this way as well in either direction.
In a sense, Latine is even easier exploit as a media vertical than Latino or Hispanic because it keeps attention within the media landscape of the US without appearing to do so. The vertical was designed to engage people on the basis of inoffensive and vapid content that is easier to connect with brands. Given how fluid and ahistorical the terminology for these marketers can be, we could imagine a scenario where Disney itself is somehow marketed as actually being latine because the term is generic.