Progress?

To my knowledge, at least since spring 2023 until sometime this summer the following pop-up images encouraged visitors to an international swim brand's website to sign up to receive their newsletter. For reasons noted in earlier blog posts these images exclude representation of most people. Checking on the status of these images almost every month generated such disappointment for me that I stopped doing so earlier this year. 

[a collage of 2 photos: top - a young woman wearing a 2-piece swimsuit while posing on a sandy beach dune; bottom - 6 people standing with their arms around each other's shoulders while looking down at the camera; both images placed next to text prompting people to sign up to receive the company's newsletter] 

So seeing this new pop-up image during a random browse of their U.S. and international websites around August 20th surprised me. 

[a young woman wearing a 1-piece swimsuit with long sleeves; googles pushed to her forehead; she's holding a pair of flippers while she skips in the low water at the beach shore; image next to text prompting people to sign up to receive the company's newsletter] 

And disappointed me again. 

Now the human portion of the newsletter sign-up prompt invites even fewer kinds of people than the previous image showing the group of six. Have other companies learned absolutely nothing from the bull's-eye store's ongoing debacle? 

It's 2025, not 1925 or 1825 despite the efforts of an alarming number of people who seem determined to roll society backward in every way to the worst aspects of those times. 

In the 21st century, the models chosen to advertise for a company reflect the kinds of people whose consumer dollars and brand loyalty they're soliciting. 

This type of exclusion by a major swim brand that's basically synonymous with water sport contributes to the exclusion of Black and Brown people in learning to swim and participating in swimming and aquatics by reinforcing the entrenched and inaccurate idea that only certain kinds of people swim and they're not Black or Brown.    

Note: Since last week there hasn't been an image included in the pop-up prompt for the newsletter sign-up and both sites feature swimmers with brown skin on their homepages, with the face of a Black woman on the international site. 

If expanding access to swimming for everyone is the sincere goal of society, every kind of person - all ages, weights, ethnicities, skin colors, physical abilities, body types, socio-economic statuses, genders... needs representation in swim ads and outreach. Make it possible for everyone to learn how to swim and to incorporate swimming and aquatics into their lives. 

Happy indoor swim season in the D.C./MD/VA region!