Comments

1
INTERLOPERS!!!
2
DAX! DAX! DAX!
3
I guess none of the bars on Cap Hill (Pony, Wildrose, the Cuff, Neighbors, Eagle, R Place, LINDAS!@ etc.) serve Jager, right?

Why would they sell such a vile product to their patrons?
4
I'm guessing the ad execs couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be Capitol or Capital, so they went with something that would be right no matter what.

Actually, more of the residents of Capitol Hill who can't be bothered to learn which it is should adopt that shorthand.
5
@3 To get them drunk, but I think you left out Bill's, Liberty, Smith, Tavern Law, Auto Battery, Cure, Harry's, Cha Cha, Havana, Rumba, Artusi, Vermission, Barrio, World of Beer, 95 Slide, Ballroom, Hideout, Odd Fellows, Baltic Room, etc.
6
@5, good point. Thanks.

Isn't it weird that a company's product that Dom equates with being a symbol of "Gay bashing" would be sold at all those bars on Capitol Hill?
7
The greatest threat to anyone's safety on Cap Hill comes from the usual suspects, not bros from Bellevue.

But hey, don't your your tolerance get in the way of your intolerance
8
Germans think of Jägermeister as a digestif for stodgy old people so it's kind of strange that it's become so strongly associated with douchebag party bros here in the US.

If you're going to gentrify a neighborhood, do it with something more classy like Fernet Branca.
9
I for one am of the opinion the only way to save Capitol Hill at this point is to open more gay bathhouses. Desperate times call for the most extreme measures imaginable. And nothing freaks out straights like boy on boy anal action!
10

So of Jager is now a symbol of "gay bashing", does that make Sake, a drink that Kamikaze pilots would toast with before their last mission, is a symbol of anti-Chinese and anti-Korean sentiment? Would an ad for cotton shirts be a pro-slavery billboard? Would an add for Italian spaghetti sauce be an ad for Italian fascism, coming to a gay bar near you ?

Because as we all know, no gay man EVER drank Jager...
11
This article is about as stupid as the advertisement it is criticizing.
12
@8 it's because skinheads around here thought it was über Deutsch - but I agree based on my own experience - personally I much prefer the German wines and cider
13
Love the article. But I have to say, I've lived on Capitol Hill for 10+ years and have always called it Cap Hill. I guess that makes me suburban?
14
I used to call it Cap Hill sometimes when I lived there.
15
how does this ad have anything to do with homophobia? homophobes 'may' drink jager? lots of people drink jager, or don't. doesn't make you homophobic or not. cry wolf much?

when you pull out these loaded accusations totally unrelated to any sort of fact you cheapen the dialog when something real needs to be talked about.

and i've lived on and off capitol hill for 15 years and plenty of locals call it cap hill. what do you call it?

do you want your neighborhood to be a vibrant destination with bars and restaurants people want to come to, or would you prefer an isolated 'locals only' vibe where anyone who doesn't fit into your idea of cool is excluded?

16
@10 sake is just rice wine and has been a beverage for a few thousand years, actually
17
#barf
18
I've lived on the hill for 4 years, and just about everyone I know calls it the hill or Cap Hill. However, I may not be self-respecting, so I'm willing to concede the point.

The mural is pretty boring, and worse than the one it replaced, but that's about all the indignation I can muster up against it. I'm sure it will be replaced in another few months.

I understand complaints about East Siders and suburbanites crowding the bars on the weekends, but this counts as fairly weak evidence.
19
first off, there are no "high rises" going up on "cap hill". a squat 6-story apt building is not a "high rise".

secondly, this is a lot about naught. jagermeister didn't do jack to anyone. take it up with the bars overserving the homophobobros.
20
Actually, I think the poster artist associated Jagermeister with homophobia. We don't have pictures of the other posters so we don't know what other associations he made. I'll be on Cap Hill in a couple hours so maybe I can report back.
21
@6 Perhaps it's less the brand than the idea the ad works upon that is so troubling. Sure, Jägermeister has a connotation of douchery, but I think the claim that drinking a bunch of shots will make you a legend is both disturbingly delusional and clearly dangerous. More, it leads to the question (answered in the satirical flyers), for what?
22
@6 @10 @11 @15 @16
Apparently no one has a taste for symbolism it's all about hard truths and if it's written it's to be read as is. Pull your heads out of your asses you know what it's eluding to.

And thank you @21
23
@ 22 Right...because this is symbolism at its best.
24
@22
So you would also object to an ad for sake that read "drink **** sake and let your spirit fly"? I mean, "fly" as in Kamikaze attack and "spirit" as in "kami", Japense for spirit or god and the root word in "Kami Kaze"
25
I moved to Capitol Hill in 2001. I cringe every time I read "Cap Hill." It feels like someone's attempt to be hip.

When we founded the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce years ago, we registered caphillchamber.org because Charlie Hamilton was squatting on capitolhillchamber.org due to some beef with a different organization that folded years earlier. It felt awkward then, and it feels awkward now.
26
I'm always amused by ads that say some business is ON Federal Way. It's not like they couldn't have, you know, checked...
27
In the age of satire, no one gets it.
28
It doesn't matter if it's Jager or shrimp and white wine that makes people into trashy demons. The POINT is that they're acting like trashy demons.
29
@24, your very rough, out-of-context translations are silly and without bite. Your imagined ad is not reluctantly similar not simply because it relies too heavily on a tellingly slight grasp of multiple languages and history, but also because it deals with actions from generations ago, which very few people might ever consider intentionally mimicking, and almost certainly won't after their next trip to a sushi bar. The concerns of a person who might resent your non-existent ad and those of someone who decries this actual mural would be very different. One needn't object to one in order to be worried by the other.

But if you found someone who answered your nearly nonsensical hypothetical positively, where would that get you? Would their response undermine their position in the least? No. So what are you getting at?
30
Jaeger is so 1999. It's about as hep as a goatee. At least update your drink trends to Fernet Branca, the Taste of 2007 (tm).
31
*'relevantly' not 'reluctantly'
32
I don't understand how this will help attract awareness to the ones tho are destroying capitol hill. If anything, I feel it encourages. Not only the big advertisement itself, but especially the passive & sarcastic posters that were made.
33
I've used "Cap Hill" on occasion, more often while texting than speaking. I'm sure I used it at least a few times while I was living in the neighborhood. Suburban or rural? No, I've lived in the city since 2003.

Getting shitfaced never made anyone legendary for GOOD reasons. Maybe if we're talking quantity of vomit or something. Pretty obvious that the ad is not aimed at the traditional Capitol Hill crowd, but also pretty obvious that the traditional crowd is being edged out by the target demographic of these ads.

I think it was Fnarf who wrote a while back (paraphrasing), "Capitol Hill died the moment everyone started talking about how cool it was." Along with Belltown, I can't think of a part of the city that has been more transformed by the push for increased density and housing for the young, monied, white-collar professionals flocking to Seattle in droves.
34
@22: alluding, not eluding. important distinction.
35
How did something like Jagermeister become the manly drink of rock stars?

I always put it in the category of Peppermint Schnapps, which we Boy Scouts would use to brush out teeth with on camping trips.
36
I grew up in a German parish, where the old folks all sipped Jaegermeister for it's medicinal qualities. I always thought it smelled/tasted like NyQuil.

Later, when just out of college and at a rather "Broish" event, I got what I think in retrospect was alcohol poisoning from doing shots of the stuff, and haven't gone near it since.

But I do think that heaping all the blame for "cap hill's" woes on one liqueur, or even alcohol exclusively, is missing the point.

(Btw, "cap hill" sounds like something tourists say - like when they ask you how to get to "Pike's Market", or how they used to refer to "The Bon March" )
37
Now that crass commercial advertising for alcoholic beverages on Capitol Hill is the symbol for Gay Bashing does this mean the Stranger and the Capitol Hill Block Party will no longer be sponsored by: Jameson, Bud Light, Pacifico, Red Bull, Monster Energy Drinks, Miller, Deschutes Brewery, the Original Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum or Heineken?
38
capitol hill, diverse!? HAHAHA.
39
@37 Monster isn't an alcoholic beverage. It can be added to one, but so can milk.
40
Who fucking cares?

Before I looked at the author I thought Paul Constant wrote this because it's so overwrought about a non-issue.

Douchebags will take a shot of anything and use any any excuse to fight or beat people up. I hate Jager and bros, and I still don't get what the big deal is. It's not like gays don't take shots of jager.
41
I guess this ad's copy could suggest that you could always "become a legend" by ending up in the Stranger's "Drunk of the Week" column.

It's funny and amusing when the Stranger posts pictures of people who are falling down drunk and vomiting because they were over served in the neighborhood bar.

*golf clap*
42
i was born on top of it, and i call it cap hill.
43
100% accurate Dominic, except women are the most frequent targets of the bro parade that comes every weekend with this attitude to Capitol Hill. There is unfortunate harassment against gay men, but nothing compared to the actual danger faced by many women and queer people, especially when they're alone Thurs-Sat nights on the hill.

Never trust anyone who says "Cap Hill". Never trust white dudes with tech jobs. Their culture is violent and hateful.
44
@43 I have several brown and yellow friends who program for a living. It's a relief to know I can still trust them. Guess I'll have to stop talking to my white friend who's studying computer science once he gets his dream job, though.
46
I call Capitol Hill Cap Hill and I practically grew up on Cap Hill.
45
{Never trust anyone who says "Cap Hill". Never trust white dudes with tech jobs. Their culture is violent and hateful.}

that's probably the 2nd dumbest thing i've read all day
47
Good luck with the posters, that company Poster Giant will just tear them down within hours anyway.
48
44- Good choice. Women and brown men are usually (not always) excluded from the entitled, oppressive culture of rich white dudes, even if they're in the same field. Same reason white fraternity culture is usually nothing like black or asian fraternity culture.
49
At this point raku is deep in Poe's Law territory. Glad that gay men no longer qualify as queer people.
50
This story is the biggest reach I've ever read. Yes, some people call it Cap Hill - I've lived here a decade now and heard and likely said it many time.

Second - trying to blame Jager on recent events is flat out irresponsible. They have donated and advertised at Pride. I don't see a single thing linking them to anything anti gay.

This is just a rant of your feelings about the hill and blade on a mural you personally don't like. I hope the maker of those ridiculous posters gets sued for copyright infringement and libel.

If you call yourself a journalist, you should be ashamed.
51
I hate the jager ad, and love these response posters.
However, The Stranger is no better with the shit show that block party has become.
52
Well that escalated quickly. You don't have to like the billboard on 12th, or the suburban crowd on the weekends, but immediately equating it to "this promotes gay bashing" is just plain irrational. Gentrification? Probably. The crowd from the burbs would be doing what they do if they were drinking anything. I'm pretty sure I saw the same billboard advertising a different alcoholic beverage a few years ago. This article comes off as whiney and self-pitying. We get it, the hill is changing. Although I don't like most of the new change, this article doesn't help anyone. In fact, i'd say it promotes more hostility.
53
"The high rises keep going up, the rent keeps going up, and the wrong crowd keeps coming in,"

Said the Racist bar owner that doesn't want people of color in its bar.

Said the Homophobic porch dweller that doesn't want gays in its neighborhood.

Said the fucking CAP HILL hipster that doesn't understand that they are just as guilty of being close minded and discriminatory as anyone else who has defined themselves as US AND THEM and cried out against the OUTSIDERS entering their environment.

This is not YOUR neighborhood, stop trying to take ownership of it.
54
After four or five shots of Jager, the only person I would want to slap and call names is Dominic Holden. I can't believe this mealy-mouthed, talentless hack is still disseminating his mindless bullshit. Someone please give this young man a better paying job doing something he's far better at, like washing dishes or flipping burgers, so he'll close his yammering shit hole.
55
@43: My dad is a pale-skinned mechanical/acoustical/electrical engineer. Go fuck yourself, and check your privilege at regular intervals.
@10: You dumb shit, they referenced Jager and Capitol Hill together, with a reference to getting drunk and rowdy. Those three things tend to share their region of overlap with gay-bashing. The analogous poster would be a bottle of sake with a Mitsubishi Zero in the background, with the slogan "Take One For The Team". THAT would be evocative of kamikaze attacks, perhaps. Sake alone isn't, nor is Jager alone evocative of gay-bashing. Don't be such a fuckwit.
56
Oh hey, look who sponsored Seattle's 2013 Pride Festival.

http://www.seattlepridefest.org/sponsors…
57
@29
First, I took a semester of Japanese...HARDEST LANGUAGE ON EARTH TO LEARN, so that's why it was only a semester. Anyway, "Kamikaze" means "divine wind", in reference to the typhoon that destroyed army of Kublai Khan in the 1300th century. During WWII, it was used to invoke the idea of a second Divine intervention to save Japan.
And yes, they toasted to Sake before they set off: http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaze…

...that is, until the Sake started running out and they just did the little ceremony with water.

Anyway, the point is that the author of this "story" seems to think that Jager means "some dumb thug from Bellevue". We could also say that Saki means "Japanese Imperialism," and that would be equally dumb.

Just as sometimes an ad for Saki might just an ad for Saki, an ad for Jager may be just an ad for Jager.

Honestly, people in an uproar because men from a neighboring city come to the bars on Capitol Hill for fun...it's just like NYC, with the hatred of the "bridge and tunnel crowd".

May the record show that when I visited Houston, I NEVER heard anyone complain when someone from Sugarland or La Porte stopped by at a local bar for some fun. They would just slap him on the back and say "howdy" (yes, they do say that)

Indeed, Seattle is far from being the accepting place it thinks it is.
58
@57
I meant the 13th century! Damn hair trigger
59
Dom Holden's whole life is stuck in some 1980s Joh Hughes movie with jocks vs nerds vs hipsters vs weirdos vs yada yada yada. Shame he can't grow up.
60
Relive the night you exploited a hate crime to rail against capitalism in a Stranger article.
61
I've probably texted "Cap Hill" a hundred times so that part makes sense. Also when u characterize the typical drunk cap hill bullies as going after "people of color" youre really exposing yourself as completely out of touch. Every other young drunk frat kid is probably sort of afraid of openly gay men and drag queens, true. and all of them are probably a little racist technically [like everyone] but cap hill is probably whiter than the neighborhoods where these guys hail from and im pretty sure they would never direct hate at non whites just for being non white; not to mention a good portion of bullies are POC themselves. sorry to rant but your just being a little dumb here.
62
OH MY FUCKING GOD NO ONE IS BLAMING JAGER YOU HALFWITS.
63
@16 Sake is not wine at all and has more in common with beer than fermented grape juice.
64
@57 Nihongo wa sonna ni muzukashii ja nai to omou kedo... I guess I only studied Japanese language and history for a few years, which really isn't enough to call myself an expert. I'm only mildly conversant, so your grasp of 'kamikaze' could be better than mine. Were it so, it still wouldn't make your analogy viable. But, please, lecture away. I'm sure you took a semester of philosophy, too.

The mural isn't just an ad for a product, it has content which makes your analogy poor for reasons previously stated and as yet unaddressed.
65
The idea is to bring attention to the type of behavior that is not acceptable in any neighborhood, but is partly advertised as "legendary" in the initial ad. People get drunk and fuck shit up, this is a trend from many people from many neighborhoods, there is NO TOLERANCE FO INTOLERANCE or violence or bigotry or sexism or racism or homophobia. That is the main point. But of course you fucking idiots are TRYING to find a reason to be upset with this because it goes against your plain white cube lives which is the other reason that building "Luxury" 400 sq/ft $1800/month apartments is a problem, it's pushing rent up and the (semi) original artist community that was thriving is being pushed out, but GOD FORBID YOU OPEN YOUR MIND TO SOMEONE ELSES PERSPECTIVE FUCK YOU.
66
@64
And what is the content? Just a bottle of Jager which, as #56 points out, is a sponsor of Seattle Pride, and saying "have a legendary time on Cap Hill."
So what is so homophobic and bad about "legendary"? People read too much into these things.

If it had a picture of a big masculine "douche" type and said "be one of the few real men on capitol hill" then I would agree, but this ad is harmless.

And what, is no one from outside of capitol hill ever suppose to hang out there? How would that be for the businesses revenue? And do no residents of Cap Hill never start fights and act like idiots? Is that something that only guys from Bellevue can do?
67
You guys continue to fight over a corpse. Capitol hill is dead. There are plenty of vibrant, fun, hip hoods still in Seattle, and they are filled with real Seattlites on the weekend!
68
"Said the fucking CAP HILL hipster that doesn't understand that they are just as guilty of being close minded and discriminatory as anyone else who has defined themselves as US AND THEM and cried out against the OUTSIDERS entering their environment." @53: yes, seriously.

I'm friends on facebook with the guys who made the posters. I see so many posts about this on facebook and it's really annoying. It sounded very elitist from an outsider's perspective, when I was trying to explain this whole thing to a friend visiting from Portland.

Oh, wow! Are you the ONLY ones who deserve to live in this city/neighborhood? I've lived here for almost ten years and I know capitol hill is changing for the worst, but get this everyone: money rules over everything. Yes, It really sucks that capitol hill is losing it's charm, but what can we do about it? Also, you can't stop these assholes from coming over on the weekend to drink in ~"YOUR"~ exclusive-extra-special-capitol hill neighborhood by putting up these posters.
69
Stupidest column since Muede equated timber framing with white racism.
70
@68
It's about violence not who deserves to live here.
71
I've been calling it Cap Hill on and off since the '80s and I don't think Jager draws the douchebags to the Hill in any way, they have it in every bar. It seems like if you wanted to target the biggest thing that's drawn douchebags to the Hill, it would be the Capitol Hill Block Party. They come, party, have fun for the first time at the Block Party, then return in future weekends and get drunk and are asses to the locals. Not knocking the Block Party, but you all know it's what happens.
72
As long as we're all hating on Jagermeister, I think it tastes weird.
73
And thickblood, you should hit me up. Since you know who I am and all... It would be cool to talk about this.
74
Oh yeah, it tastes like cough syrup. I'm always bummed when someone buys me a shot of it... I'm like "Were they out of whiskey and tequila?"
75
Maybe there's another way to interpret this ad:

"Go somewhere that's not where you live, get all fucked up on our product and become known as a ginormous douche who now has an arrest record," in which case, perhaps it could be considered as more of a cautionary tale.
76
If you decide to boycott Jaeger, may it be as successful as your boycott of Stoli ;)
77
It is THE HILL you umlautters. God.
78
This isn't the first time an artist/activist has misdirected his frustration into the hasty concoction of an ineffective satire, and it won't be the last. But it seems to be a new phenomenon for Dominic and The Stranger to broadcast these misplaced satires and then to double down on them even when their absurdity has been exposed.

Please stop, Dom. It makes you look stupid. There are many, many better reasons to criticize that mural ad than for its wholly imagined connection to homophobia.
79
@67 You are incorrect. Every Seattle neighborhood is "dead" (according to somebody.)

What we need to do is revive Pioneer Square as the party neighborhood to relieve the pressure on Pike/Pine. How can we get that party engine started again?

I have never heard anybody call it Cap Hill, only "the hill." I believe that people do call it Cap Hill, but I won't be doing that myself.
80
@77 FTW
81
Capitol Hill NIMBYs are easily the most hilarious NIMBYs in this whole city full of 'em.

The demographic the ad is targetting isn't "douchebros," it's "men under the age of 26." The staff of The Stranger is a lot older than that now, and clearly not getting any younger.
82
Holy shit, Dominic. What were YOU drinking when you wrote this pointless pile of shit?
83
Pretty much everything that @78 said. Dom, you're better than this sort of misplaced reactionary behavior.

And as a tongue-in-cheek aside, I'd note that alcoholic Red Bull-based drinks have unquestionably done more harm than Jäger/Guinness/[insert popular drink of the week] combined by taking run-of-the-mill douchebros and turning them into super-charged assholes. At least reserve your invective for a more ignominious beverage.
84
One of the things I miss most about the old hill is shitty service, especially when aimed squarely at tourists. Keep the bastards out.
85
The Jager ad is god awful and I'm sure the app is idiotic and pointless. But it's certainly a stretch to associate the brand directly with homophobia or rapey type culture just because of a few parody posters. Which are fantastic if you look past what they are directly parodying. They are a commentary on the undeniable changing face of the neighborhood. It may seem like an elitist attitude, but they also (mostly) specifically address violence and intolerance, things of which seem to be on the rise with the influx of condo residents/bridge and tunnel people or whatever you want to call them. If you feel "bad" for Jagermeister because there's a chance some people will take these things out of context, well I think you're missing the point entirely.

No comment on the "cap hill" thing. Seems like a non-issue compared to people being harassed or feeling unsafe in their own neighborhood.
86
@8 "If you're going to gentrify a neighborhood, do it with something more classy like Fernet Branca. "

This is the most CapHill thing I've ever read.
87
I abbreviate it to "Cap Hill" or "Cap.hill" on twitter sometimes. I haven't lived there for over 30 years.
88
@67 That is not what it says, means, or entails. It doesn't say, "Have a legendary time." It says, "Relive the time you became legends on Cap Hill," presumably thanks in no small part to downing a large number of Jager shots. As I pointed out earlier, that is a dangerous and deluded approach to drinking, which (especially if it is worrhy of remark) can lead to the sorts of unpleasant behavior mentioned in the satirical flyers.
89
Dominic - Haven't you been a cheerleader for developers for years? It's not just this Jager ad that's the problem. You've had a hand in paving the way.
90
My last post should have been addressed to @66, i.e. collectivism_sucks, not at 67.
91
Why doesn't someone just go splash some paint on it? The ad sucks, go fuck it up. End of story.
92
Cap hill is already goddamn gentrified and people on cap hill say cap hill or the hill. You hear the hill more from people who don't live close enough to first hill to remember it's a neighborhood.
93
#11 nailed it.
94
Quite a stretch.
95
Would this be better Dom?

“Jagermeister - tickles yer bum”
96
@6: No, but the bars should push back against the distributors to change their fucking idiot marketing.

The Jaeger-shots crowd would not change their businesses for the better.
97
@91: Yeah, not a huge fan of vandalism, but I'll make an exception for that and payday loan offices.
98
man, it's always nice to wake up and see that ol' dom got his ass handed to him yet again. oh, by the way dipshit, i'm from the "rural eastside" and i dare, yes DARE to come spend my money on "the hill" from time to time. why, me and the missus were there just last night, buying records, drinking beer, and enjoying a nice meal. of course, she has worked on the hill, and i worked on the hill for a few years, doing REAL work right underneath your little castle.
99
@83 As a tongue-in-cheek response to your tongue-in-cheek aside, do you mean Red Bull-based alcohol drinks like Jagerbombs?
100
What's egregious about the whole campaign to me is its scale. In addition to the billboards there are also the branded tour buses going up and down the hill, and an app tie-in to a promotional campaign is such a waste of resources. It's even more unnecessary since they already have one of the most effective promotions by giving out those heavily branded shot-producing fridges that are a highly visible staple at most bars. It's poorly planned and poorly executed.

Also, while we're on the topic of contentious nomenclature, it's not called or pronounced "Saki," dum-dum gaijin.

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