I thought they weren't called Gillette Girls though. Rather, they were just called Gillettes (because of the alliteration with Jill). Versus Razor Boys.

The term Gillette has no gender. It's just a term for heavily cybered types/Street Samurai. The company Gillette makes razors.

You know, the best a man can get. Or at least, you'll get that reference if you're old enough to have played 1st or 2nd Edition, lol.

I'm fairly certain they still use that tagline. However, I don't recall it ever being applied to a male character for some reason.

I don't either.

Nope. From the beginning, it was gender neutral. Pretty much any online Shadowrun glossary will reflect this, but I'll get you guys a picture of the glossary from 1st Ed when I get home. I found an old post from Bull on the SR4 forums and he said the only book that had used it with a gender reference was Runner Havens, but that was author error. As a bit of trivia, Gillette didn't even start marketing to women until after Shadowrun was introduced (1992).


The phonetic relation to Jill and the "ette" is just an association you've made. Has no relation to the term and how it is used in Shadowrun.

Hey, Gillette sure beats Moulinette

Just for reference. I remembered this thread this morning. Checked my 1st Ed, Gillette wasn't in the glossary.

However, I did find it multiple times in "Into the Shadows", the original anthology, so perhaps that was where I remembered it from. Fortunately I moved recently so I knew where all the books were boxed up, lol. It was also used to refer to male characters repeatedly in Wolf & Raven, Run Hard Die Fast, Preying for Keeps, Fade to Black, and House of the Sun. In fact, House of the Sun was the only place I found a female character being referred to as a gillette, and the book calls her specifically a "female gillette" just to differentiate her from the previous gillettes in the book who were all male.

Gillette was just a very visible and well known brand back then. One of the oldest American companies that sold razors, and that was what they were known for. Gibson had coined the term razor girl for the Molly character from Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic, and Shadowrun co-opted it as razor guy for cybered up street muscle. Gillette was just supposed to be a street slang derivation. A reference to razors using the brand most recognized for making razors.

It seems a little anachronistic now since most people know the Mach 3 product, but might not immediately be able to tell you which company sells it. Then again, I guess we can give them leeway. I mean, they didn't predict smartphones (at least they got close on that one), affordable and easily portable mass data storage, or Google Glass back in 89 either, haha.

I'm not so sure. That link says it can make guacamole. Shaving is annoying, but I love guacamole.

Cyberpunk has never been about predicting the future. It's meant to be an iconic mirror of the present in the 1980's. You shouldn't castigate them for not presenting an accurate future any more than you'd slam on Star Wars or Star Trek for not getting it right.

I dunno if I'd use the word castigate to describe what I said. At least, assuming that we're using the definition of castigate found in the dictionary. In fact, I was explaining that the reason the term doesn't carry as much weight today and might be misunderstood with false associations like "Jill-ette" is because Gillette isn't as pervasive of a brand name in 2013, but was back in 1990. You know, because it was a reflection of the late 1980s/early 90s. Almost like a mirror or something. The joke was that they didn't predict that Gillette's brand name recognition wouldn't carry forward.

I think you're doing a great job of misrepresenting other people's ideas on the matter. I've into SR since 2nd edition (didn't play until much later, but in the early 90s I had materials for it that I read just for the setting). So please don't assume that just because Gillette isn't as pervasive a brand now as it was then that I neither remember nor have been exposed to the tag line or the idea that it represents someone on the cutting edge (yet another play on words, you see).

Alliteration goes a long way.

There should be a video from Origins available soon that is germane to this topic and about which I am grinning in anticipation.

What did I misrepresent? You said you thought it was reference to female samurai, and had never heard it used to refer to a male character. I just suggested that was an association you'd made in your head. And it obviously was, since not only was it incorrect, but I demonstrated that not only was it a genderless term, but it had actually almost exclusively been used in reference to male characters. Thus, the association was one you'd made after the fact.

Now I work in marketing, and I don't want to bore anyone with the details, but knowing a brand exists, and immediately associating it with an idea are different terms. Especially when we're talking about a brand which has a different image now than it did 25 years ago. I'm not insulting you, or suggesting you're dumb. I just have a fairly good idea why you thought the way you did. And it's not a bad thing. I get paid because I know that kind of stuff.

And I wasn't saying it's a bad thing to not be old enough to remember the old Gillette commercials. People are as old as the number of years since they were born. It's not something you can control. I was making the joke that I'm old, and the rest of us who remember playing 1st and 2nd Edition, not that you're possibly too young.

now I feel old I'll have to go buy something...

ahh, now I know what you get paid for

OMG! I just got this song out of my head after driving my wife and myself crazy by humming/singing it for two solid weeks. Now it's back with a vengeance and I'm loving the alternate lyrics

Oh, oh oh street sam of mine!

This is pure awesomeness

I do, although my training is in opera and Jazz. I'll see what I can do. No promises, though as I'll be out of state for a while.

"Street Ron" would just be wierd.

As would be "ronnie".



-k

Actually, during a conversation, we came to the conclusion: Street Samurai and Gillette came into vogue because there were fans of William Gibson in the early age of the Shadowrun timeline. A little meta, but I'm sure William Gibson existed in the Shadowrun universe.

Street Ron will probbaly be a name of a character in my first SR5 game now. Maybe a low level fixer?