Saturday, June 22, 2013

Making fun of celebrities through products: Good fun or bad business?


Good evening lovelies! I'm sure through the Twitterverse or email web you've all heard about the latest clothing giant to come under criticism in an attempt to be mainstream.

If you haven't heard about it in the last few days; Abercrombie & Fitch decided to make fun of Taylor Swift by putting out a t-shirt that reads "More Boyfriends Than T.S."


This isn't the first time a company has decided to put a popular figure into their clothing concept - Look at every Pro Obama/Pro Biden shirt that existed from different clothing lines. When you walk into Spencer's or browse through Ebay/Cafe Press, you can find any sort of extremely sexual, dirty humored shirt that is 100 times more offensive than this Abercrombie shirt, and a lot of times they're making fun of celebrities.

However, Taylor Swift fans caused a major uproar when the discovery of this shirt went viral. Abercrombie has since pulled the shirt from it's stores due to the outcry of "Swifties" (Taylor Swift fans)

I wouldn't wear this shirt, I think it sends the wrong message for the age group that it's meant for. Countless comedians have made this exact same joke so many times though, and not a single one has come under fire because of the audience it's delivered to. I think this shirt would work better in Spencer's or on Ebay as more of a humor-based shirt as compared to one that's supposed to be "Cutesy" and meant for a tween audience.

When a shirt is making of a celebrity in a humor-based forum, that's where the success is. Just look at this shirt, which was featured in Jimmy Kimmel's video "I wanna Channing all over your Tatum" where Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum made fun of Channing's name:

This shirt is funny, because it's meant to be, and it's geared at an older, adult audience. The Taylor Swift shirt might have been popular and successful had it been geared at an adult audience as more of a gag shirt. In this situation, I think both parties were wrong: Abercrombie shouldn't have put out that shirt for such a young demographic, and Taylor Swift fans need to lighten up. I enjoy Twilight, but I can laugh at everything that makes fun of it too.

What do you think? Do you think the Swifties were too harsh? Do you think it's fair that they made Abercrombie take this shirt down? Do you think it was a good idea for Abercrombie & Fitch to put out this shirt in the first place?