I tire of people who try to police the world even as much as I do of companies who immediately backtrack and simply "feed the beast" of ridiculous public outcry. It shows how absurd the public have become when a story "breaks" that isn't really a big deal and then everyone jumps up to virtue signal.
Virtue Signal
noun
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
This "controversy" is simply surrounding the sale of a sweatshirt which was available only in Canada and even then it was only online.
There are other adult themed shirts as well that have Santa in a number of sexual situations but it's the snowman doing blow that set people off. I'm sure most normal people just found it amusing because as anyone who has ever done coke can attest, "snow" is a whole lotta fun! Even if you haven't ever done blow (don't do drugs, kids) you have seen how it is depicted in films.
The main reason why i feel that the perpetually-outraged population of the world is once again incorrect in their decision to react to this are detailed here.
- the shirt was only available online in an adults' section
- the shirt was only on the Canadian website - it was not in any Wal-Mart store
- Wal-Mart is a massive company with hundreds of thousands of products for sale and likely doesn't morality-check every piece of merch that goes up for sale on its site
- The company who makes the sweaters, "FUN Wear," is now experiencing a dramatic increase in sales from their OWN website because of the stupid media piece.
The last bit is the most important part and this is only going to increase the likelihood of people producing stuff like this in the future and trying to get them online. Any press is good press and now FUN-Wear is seeing a dramatic increase in orders of their products that before this SJW piece hit the stands was bound to be a relatively unknown product.
This happened once before with a Monopoly clone board game around 20 years ago (I'm sure it has happened many more times than once but i only recall one.)
Ghettopoly, was poorly produced board game that fell apart after you put it back in the box for the 3rd or 4th time. It was called "racist" despite the fact that the game depicted all races in it. It went from being a product that almost no one would have ever even heard of to an overnight sensation once the SJW's protested the store and it made national news. I know all this because I saw it on the news and then I ordered one.
It was a funny game - nothing more. It would have been a poorly-selling one if it weren't for the dummies with nothing better to do than to create problems for companies that try to make edgy products.
The point of the story is people are ridiculous. No one would have even known either of these products existed if certain twitter users hadn't used an opportunity to gain some online fame by virtue signalling (twitter didn't exist 20 years ago but you get the point.) However, this was probably their original intention anyway. They probably didn't care that the shirt was for sale but needed to appear as though they did. Their brief fame will be short-lived.
If the company themselves organized this public outcry I say "good job guys!" If it was an individual trying to solve the problems of the world via Twitter I'm happy to see that his or her plan has massively backfired and they need to be prepared for a rush of more inappropriate Christmas products, because that is exactly what is going to happen.
Cocaine snowman is one of the most sought after clothing products of the season because of you to the point where the company FUN-wear can't keep up with demand and it is selling on Ebay for 3 to 4 times the original value.