This is a remarkable piece of propaganda. pic.twitter.com/JCM51ZQinL
— ct (@ctatplay) October 8, 2015
Chill billboard, @airbnb pic.twitter.com/4QuRJSaG0N
— jden (@jden415) October 22, 2015
What does your $12 million tax bill have to do with anything?@JesseThorn @Airbnb going after all underpaid public servants pic.twitter.com/6cJWYhqAjY
— Robert J Fangman (@FangmanRob) October 22, 2015
Are the Yes Men viciously parodying Airbnb? This reads like something an entitled, clueless San Francisco startup would say, but then would be prevented from actually saying by the sole adult in the room charged by the board of directors to stop all the babies in hoodies from having an accident all over themselves.How the who what I can't why pic.twitter.com/LgR4qYNbuG
— Sarah Fine (@fineplanner) October 21, 2015
Why are there so many of these?@kimmaicutler @gamoid @ashleymayer pic.twitter.com/Wl7bEtHtIH
— Kyle Huey (@khuey_) October 22, 2015
Is this real? How is this real?@sarahjeong @juliacarriew another @Airbnb sign at Oak and Stanyan directed at SF Recreation and Parks pic.twitter.com/CeVUVHJBY0
— Urvi Nagrani (@theurv) October 22, 2015
Who let this happen?@sarahjeong There's one about planting trees at Masonic & Haight. pic.twitter.com/9n8NDfsCvh
— Chris Arvin (@meinhyperspeed) October 22, 2015
@juliacarriew @khuey_ @njudah Wonder if they're going to take down these giant billboards above Union Sq. too pic.twitter.com/cr79pdbDgm
— Adam N. Mayer (@AdamNMayer) October 22, 2015
We emailed Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty to ask whether the library ad was "real." He responded by email, "as opposed to a fake one :)"
But by the end of Wednesday, Airbnb apologized for the ads and promised to take them down "immediately."In the future we will live in a hypercapitalist Gibsonian corporate dystopia where the crumbling walls of our cities are plastered with oddly snide propaganda.The best part about this is that although Airbnb is spending 8 million freaking dollars to campaign against Proposition F, few if any of these white-text-on-orange-background ads are part of that staggering sum. Wong reports that city buses and bus shelters can't feature ads about political candidates or measures on San Francisco ballots—which is probably why none of these ads even mention Prop F in the first place, thus lending to the incredibly weird tone.A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are you seriously writing on this?"
Nulty did not respond to another follow up email.
The ads are all coming down, but don't worry, there's plenty of "No on F" fun to go around—at least, until November 3. Check out these weird Simpsons-themed tweets that were targeted at San Francisco residents.Dear Airbnb,
I'm happy to hear that you paid your taxes this year. I did too! Isn't it awesome? However, I've crunched some numbers and I have some bad news for you. Out of your $12 mil of hotel tax, only 1.4% percent goes to the SF Public Libraries. So that's $168,000. Divided by the 868 library staff, we have $193 per person. Assuming each employee works 5 days per week minus holidays, this is $0.78 per employee per day. Since that's significantly under San Francisco minimum wage ($12.25/hr), I doubt that your hotel tax can keep the libraries open more than a minute or two later.
However, had you donated that $8 million you spent fighting Proposition F directly to the public libraries you love so much, that could have made a bigger difference. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20!
Love,
Martha Kenney (San Francisco resident)
Neighbor spying on neighbor, incentivized to sue each other. It's on the SF ballot this Nov. http://t.co/81iyh8PMMf pic.twitter.com/TYu1O2b9Q2
— No on SF Prop F (@NoonPropF) July 31, 2015
No, I don't know what they were trying to do with that, either.SF's #PropF pits neighbor against neighbor by encouraging spying for financial gain. pic.twitter.com/qjn0fJCFW1
— No on SF Prop F (@NoonPropF) August 16, 2015