HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

He Apologized Over Facebook!: Analyzing Facebook as a Medium Within the Context of Apologia M. Paige Schneweis I expect[ed] a public apology via video or bigger. Your apology on Facebook wont make up for how much youve offended (Le, 2013). These strong words came from Facebook user, Simon Le, in the form of a comment on a post on clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitchs Facebook page. The post was an apology from A&Fs CEO, Mike Jeffries, in response to major public backlash the company had received because of statements he had made in an interview seven years prior. While Les comment was among thousands questioning the sincerity and legitimacy of the apology, his pointed out the interesting factor of the medium used to send the apologetic message. Not very different from a situation in which a heartbroken and angry teenage girl may condemn her now ex-boyfriend for breaking up with her through a text message, the medium seems to play a critical part in the sending of the message. Therefore, by analyzing his apology through the lens of the generic approach, specifically the genre of apologia, I argue that Mike Jeffries apology was rendered insincere and ineffective because Facebook was interpreted as an inappropriate medium for a public apology. In 2006, in an interview with Salon, Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Mike Jeffries said, We hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We dont market to anyone other than that. In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people dont belong [in our clothes], and they cant belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. (Funk, 2013).

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

The comments resurfaced in May of 2013, causing widespread criticism on the Internet and social media. A&Fs exclusionary branding strategy was viewed as rude, offensive, discriminatory, and inappropriate, which provoked a great deal of negative responses: YouTube user Greg Karber created a viral video that showed him distributing Abercrombie & Fitch clothes to the homeless (Nudd, 2013), a plus-size woman wrote an open letter to the company that included photos of her in the style of A&Fs hypersexualized advertisements, and the company experienced a lot of negative criticism from social media users and other agencies across the Internet (McGregor, 2013). About one week after the resurgence of his comments, Jeffries issued an apology via Abercrombie & Fitchs Facebook page. It read, A note from Mike, our CEO: I want to address some of my comments that have been circulating from a 2006 interview. While I believe this 7 year old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context, I sincerely regret that my choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has caused offense. A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers. However, we care about the broader communities in which we operate and are strongly committed to diversity and inclusion. We hire good people who share these values. We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics. (Abercrombie & Fitch, 2013). The post garnered a lot of attention, demonstrated by the 3,939 likes, 1,231 shares, and 3,823 comments. Of those nearly 4,000 comments, it can be assumed that the majority are

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

negative responses due to the fact that forty of the first fifty comments shown criticized and chastised Abercrombie & Fitch and Mike Jeffries (Abercrombie & Fitch, 2013). Possibly a PR move to save face, Mike Jeffries issued this apology to an audience that, for the most part, didnt seem to buy it. According to Ware and Linkugel (1973), though, Jeffries public apology falls within the genre of apologia, which is a category of public address that responds to an attack upon a persons character, upon his worth as a human being, [which] does seem to demand a direct response, and in the case of men and women of position, this response is usually a public speech of self-defense, the apology (p. 274). In Jeffries case, his legitimacy as a CEO, as well as his ability to show compassion and inclusiveness, were attacked. Ware and Linkugels (1973) article explains four possible factors that can make up an apology: denial, bolstering, differentiation, and transcendence (p. 275). For our purposes, we will ignore bolstering, as it is not relevant. Denial is a reformative factor in which the speaker denies allegations, but strategies of denial are obviously useful to the speaker only to the extent that such negations do not constitute a known distortion of reality or to the point that they conflict with other beliefs held by the audience (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 275). However, because it wasnt possible for Jeffries to successfully deny that he had made those statements, he in fact used denial of intent (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 276) when he said in his Facebook apology, While I believe this 7 year old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context, I sincerely regret that my choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has caused offense (Abercrombie & Fitch, 2013). Here, Jeffries acknowledges the fact that he did make those comments in an interview, but he denies that he intended for them to offend anyone, accusing the media of taking his statements out of context. In doing this, he suggests his innocence in the matter, which is effective because people respond differently to the actions of others when they

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

perceive those actions to be intended than when they perceive them to be merely a part of the sequence of events (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 276). Jeffries also implements differentiation, a transformative factor which attempts to persuade the audience to view the fact from a different perspective for the benefit of the speaker (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 278). Differentiation is present in Jeffries statement, A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers (Abercrombie & Fitch, 2013). Jeffries is trying to persuade his audience to look at his controversial words in an objective light which would suggest that he was describing a classically well-defined brand and target market, a common business practice. Jeffries is basically trying to say, Yes, I said those things, but here is what I was actually trying to do. Jeffries also made an attempt at transcendence, which is actually a transformative factor opposite of differentiation, that works to persuade the audience to move away from the allegation at hand and in a direction toward some more abstract, general view ofcharacter (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 280). Jeffries tries to steer the audience in the direction of viewing himself and the company as entities that embody diversity and inclusion when he goes on to say, However, we care about the broader communities in which we operate and are strongly committed to diversity and inclusion. We hire good people who share these values. We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics. (Abercrombie & Fitch, 2013). However, this is described as an attempt, because according to Ware and Linkugel (1973), transcendence only works to the extent that the manipulated attribute(s) proves to be

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

congruent with the new context in the minds of the audience (p. 280). Transcendence does not work for Jeffries because the abstract view that he is trying to create is not congruent with what the audience is willing to see. Ware and Linkugel (1973) go on to describe the positions that speakers take based on the factors present in their apology (p. 282). Because Jeffries primarily used denial and differentiation, he spoke from the position of absolution which, as a combination of these two factors, seeks to deny any wrong and differentiate any personal attribute in question from whatever it is that the audience finds reprehensible (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 283). If he had successfully employed transcendence, Jeffries might have been able to speak from a vindicative position which would have allowed an attempt at the preservation of [his] reputation, but also at the recognition of his greater worth as a human being relative to the worth of his accusers (Ware & Linkugel, 1973, p. 283). Now, going back, Ware and Linkugel (1973) stated that, In the case of men and women of position, this response is usually a public speech of self-defense, the apology (p. 275). Because Jeffries posted the apology on Facebook, it was not a public speech, as connotation would suggest, therefore going against the expectations set forth by the genre of apologia. And this did not go unnoticed. As Simon Le (2013) said, I expect[ed] a public apology via video or bigger. Your apology on Facebook wont make up for how much youve offended. Most people who are in the public eye, when expected to give an apology, will do so through a recorded or televised media outlet. Jeffries resorted to a Facebook post of 124 words. As mentioned previously, the concept of sending a message through the wrong medium is not new. It is widely believed that breaking up by sending a text message is very inappropriate. In this case, a CEO of a well-known clothing retailer sending an apology via Facebook was

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deemed inappropriate. In her book, The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media, author Ilana Gershon (2010) explores her research on the topic of how new media like Facebook and texting affect the sending and receiving of messages. Many of her general insights are applicable to the controversy surrounding Mike Jeffries apology. The appropriateness of a medium for a message is determined by media ideologies, which are a set of beliefs about communicative technologies with which users and designers explain perceived media structure and meaning (Gershon, 2010, p. 3). Jeffries choice of Facebook as a medium is viewed just as Gershon (2010) found people to view breaking up through text: the wrong medium can signal to others the initiators cowardice, lack of respect, callousness, or indifference (p. 3). The media ideology that Jeffies audience adhered to believed Facebook to be inappropriate for an apology, especially for someone in a position of power, and signaled insincerity, cowardice, indifference, callousness, and lack of respect for his audience. It is also important to note that beliefs about a medium are determined in relation to beliefs about other mediums (Gershon, 2010, p. 5). This means that the interpretation about the appropriateness of Facebook as the medium for the apology is made in consideration of the other media options available. Because a public speech, often televised, is considered a standard, respected, and acceptable medium of public apology, Facebook as a medium was judged against this and deemed inappropriate. Mike Jeffries attempted to clear his name and Abercrombie & Fitchs name through denial of intent and differentiation. But, Jeffries choice of Facebook as a medium for his public apology not only went against the expectations set forth by the genre of apologia, but also defied expectations imposed by media ideologies. Because of this, his apology was rendered insincere

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

and ineffective by his audience, who saw his apologetic post on Abercrombie & Fitchs Facebook page as disingenuous and unsuitable.

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

Reflection The approach I chose for this analysis was Generic Criticism. In research for another classs paper on the Abercrombie & Fitch controversy, I became interested in Mike Jeffries Facebook apology. It was evident that it hadnt been received well, and I wanted to explore why. I decided analyzing it by evaluating it according to the genre of apologia and its expectations would be the most appropriate, because as Simon Le had expressed, his audience had expected a more legitimate apology through a video, not Facebook. I also wanted to examine what factors Jeffries had used in his apology. I was also reminded of how much people get upset by relationships being ended through text messaging, and I found the conflict over the medium to be appropriate for Jeffries situation. I already had Ilana Gershons book, The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media, and knew it would be a valuable resource. I believed tying in media ideologies with the expectations of apologia would be effective and useful.

HE APOLOGIZED OVER FACEBOOK!

References Abercrombie & Fitch. (2013, May 15). A note from Mike, our CEO. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/abercrombie/posts/10151345201895378 Funk, J. (2013, May 9). Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Targets Only Thin & Beautiful People. Retrieved from http://uinterview.com/news/mike-jeffries-abercrombieand-fitch-ceo-targets-only-lsquothin-and-beautifulrsquo-people-7304 Gershon, I. (2010). The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Le, S. (2013, May 15). A note from Mike, our CEO. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/abercrombie/posts/10151345201895378 McGregor, J. (2013, May 22). Abercrombie & Fitchs big, bad brand mistake. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/05/22/abercrombie-fitchsbig-bad-brand-mistake/ Nudd, T. (2013, May 15). Man Strikes Back at Abercrombie & Fitch by Giving Its Clothes to the Homeless: Stunt takes apparel brand beyond cool kids. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/man-strikes-back-abercrombie-fitch-giving-its-clotheshomeless-149525 Ware, B. L., & Linkugel, W. A. (1973, October 1). They Spoke in Defense of Themselves: On the Generic Criticism of Apologia. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 59, 274-283. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6a843054ea32-4dae-86d1-5fe18bc9206f%40sessionmgr4003&vid=2&hid=4202