I Cannot Stop Laughing at These Tone-Deaf Airbnb Ads

Step foot in San Francisco, and you'll likely catch a glimpse of an ad—a billboard, a poster on a wall, a flyer taped up in a window—urging you to vote one way or another on Proposition F. Residents of the city tell me they've also been receiving a barrage of mailings, each one even weirder than the next:

This is a remarkable piece of propaganda. pic.twitter.com/JCM51ZQinL
— ct (@ctatplay) October 8, 2015

And when they turn on their television, they're confronted with sinister TV spots like this one, in which a gravelly-voiced narrator asks with great seriousness, "What if the government required you to report when you're sleeping in your own home… or even in your own bed?" What if, indeed.

Prop F is a controversial ballot measure that San Francisco residents will be voting on in November. The measure specifically targets Airbnb by restricting short-term rentals to 75 nights a year and creating a civil cause of action for anyone living within 100 feet of a violating party.

It's a hotly contested measure in a city wracked with what seems like a never-ending housing crisis. Some say Airbnb rentals are exacerbating the housing shortage—and there's good evidence to back that claim. Here's one depressing statistic: the Mission has both the highest number of Airbnb hosts and the highest number of evictions!

On the other hand, correlation isn't causation, housing is scarce for many reasons, and Airbnb is just one drop in a big, dismal bucket of confounding factors. Besides, some Airbnb hosts are just San Francisco residents who can't afford to live in the city without the extra money. And even if Airbnb is the problem, maybe this proposed law is no good anyway?

But enough of this very serious, depressing talk! Let's look at some hilarious ads!

Chill billboard, @airbnb pic.twitter.com/4QuRJSaG0N
— ｊｄｅｎ (@jden415) October 22, 2015

Look at this! What is this? Why would you even say that? Who was in charge of this advertisement?

@JesseThorn @Airbnb going after all underpaid public servants pic.twitter.com/6cJWYhqAjY
— Robert J Fangman (@FangmanRob) October 22, 2015

What does your $12 million tax bill have to do with anything?

How the who what I can't why pic.twitter.com/LgR4qYNbuG
— Sarah Fine (@fineplanner) October 21, 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.

@kimmaicutler @gamoid @ashleymayer pic.twitter.com/Wl7bEtHtIH
— Kyle Huey (@khuey_) October 22, 2015

Why are there so many of these?

@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

Is this real? How is this real?

@sarahjeong There's one about planting trees at Masonic & Haight. pic.twitter.com/9n8NDfsCvh
— Chris Arvin (@meinhyperspeed) October 22, 2015

Who let this happen?

@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

Oh my GOD.

It reads like a joke because—little-known scientific fact—San Francisco exists in a special magnetic field where Poe's Law applies to everyone and everything at all times. No one will ever mock Airbnb more effectively than Airbnb, simply because Airbnb lacks the capacity to understand how hilarious it's being.

When Julia Carrie Wong at SF Weekly contacted Airbnb to confirm whether or not the ads were a hoax, she got this response:

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.

Here's one Airbnb ad that went viral, thanks to a resident's numbers-driven response:

Martha Kenney replied on Facebook:

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.

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

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

No, I don't know what they were trying to do with that, either.