Can someone please explain the thinking behind this. I’m at a complete loss trying to imagine how this decision was made.
Urban Outfitters decides that a blood splattered Kent State sweatshirt is just the thing everyone wants.
I’m just speechless.
They’re claiming it was a mistake, and that it wasn’t meant to allude to the massacre. You can decide how convincing you find that.
UO is the adolescent troll of retail. Every year they seem to be in the news for some WTF tone-deafness. They know exactly what they’re doing.
Too soon?
Give me the $130 instead, and I’ll walk next to you telling everyone you’re an asshole.
Urban Outfitters controversy–
Don’t care if Ohio hurts.
Why should they show any mercy?
Dead children sell sweatshirts.
Gotta get down to it,
Retail is marking us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you shopped there and
Found this shirt on the rack?
How can you shop when you know?
Urban Outfitters controversy–
Don’t care if Ohio hurts.
Why should they show any mercy?
Dead children sell sweatshirts.
Dead children sell sweatshirts.
Dead children sell sweatshirts.
Dead children sell sweatshirts.
I dunno, it looks like an unfortunate tie dye job to me honestly.
Yeah, but you’re a Cubs fan. 
Didn’t your mama teach you to NEVER mix whites and colors in the wash!
This. Plenty of baby boomers are justifiably bothered by this, but they don’t shop at UO; very few of UO’s actual paying customers will stop shopping there because of this. From UO’s perspective, a few hundred bucks’ worth of sweatshirts has generated tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of publicity.
Same goes for Zara’s concentration camp pajamas; there’s no conceivable way that absolutely no one in the chain of command recognized the similarity to concentration camp prisoner clothing.
Its pretty simple…
[ul]
[li]It is just two months from the official start of Holiday shopping.[/li][li]Create “Kent State” vintage sweatshirt, one only because you have zero intention of every actually selling these online or in the retail stores.[/li][li]Outrage ensues, driving up hits and mentions and all kinds of social media hubbub. This improves future search rankings for Urban Outfitters.[/li][li]In November, online Christmas shopper Googles “college sweatshirt” or “OSU sweatshirt”, etc. and viola - links to Urban Outfitters shows up at the top of the search results.[/li][/ul]
Given the recent efforts of the media to draw attention to (or create? but that’s one for GD) systemic abuses of power throughout our judicial system–from cops to courts–I thought this sweatshirt was long overdue. Kent State slaughter was almost 50 years ago and we have no less reason to fear or government now than we did back then.
It’s easy to see it as a troll, and maybe it really was. But art’s virtue rests with the viewer. I saw it in a “laught so you don’t cry” dark humor sort of way. Why people want to “never forget” 9/11, but are so willing to ignore the horror of what our own government did, and still does, to us is absolutely mind-blowing. Unless they Google it, kids today don’t even know what Neil Young was singing about, and even then they will only know the subject matter and not the shock. My wife, who is way smarter and hipper than I am, didn’t even get the reference in the sweatshirt. Is that really more acceptable than ripping the scab off that old wound?
And next there will be a Trayvon hoodie.
And why not?
Gee, because turning a dead kid’s outerwear into a marketing ploy trivializes the moral tragedy and legal travesty his death represents? Just a guess.
You’re fooling yourself if you think anyone is trying to make artistic statements with these stunts. They are trying to make money.
I’m mostly outraged by is the price. $130?!?
Well, I never saw a statement, just a price tag.
So? UA is a business, it’s their right and duty to turn a profit or alienate people. As 1st amendment abuses go, this one is pretty insignificant. Getting upset about the tactic, if that’s what is going on, only feeds the troll. Right? So what we do about the tactic is what is important. We can ignore the trollery–which is demonstrably impossible; or we can troll the troll by changing their message.
Alternatively, we can buy torches and pitchforks from Dr. Frankenstein’s highly profitable Angry Mob Outfitters and march up to the castle to show him a thing or two.
ETA: A price tag that is, admittedly, an intentional barrier to actual product movement. Strong arguments in favor of marketing ploy, sure. but my (rambly) point is–why take the bait complete with hook, rather than try to find the good in something offensive? I’ll shut up now. It either makes sense or it doesn’t.
It’s not a 1st amendent “abuse”, it’s just lame, distasteful, and pathetically attention-whorish. They are well within their rights to do this and the public is well within its rights to roll its eyes, call them names, and boycott them.