Adidas has got itself into hot water over a trainer that it was planning to market that according to its detractors symbolised slavery.
Adidas has cancelled plans for a training shoe with a shackle-like ankle cuff after critics said it resembled a symbol of slavery
Okay, to be fair, they look bloody silly but if people want to walk around with an orange cuff attached to a plastic chain on their ankles, so be it.
Adidas has reacted to the cries of the permanently offended with the usual cowardly climb-down:
We apologise if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace.
No, no, no, no! By all means withdraw the product if you think you misjudged the market – that is sound business sense. But, under no circumstances should you apologise to these cretins, that only encourages them.
Please, please, please, can we stop with this apologising for causing offence? The correct response is; “so you are offended? Well too fucking bad. Now get over yourself”.
A few years ago I read that some person/group took offence at the computer terminology of “slave drives” and “master drives”. It may or may not be true of course, but I did like the idea of some idiot seeing offence in this. People that go through life perpetrually offended really do deserve to be offended.
Repeatedly
I had an interesting experience recently; I found that a class of 13-year-olds could barely bring themselves to utter the word ‘slave’ – it came out in a sort of strangled gargle.
Eventually, one of them plucked up the courage to ask, “Are you allowed to say that word?”
Makes teaching them about Roman society pretty difficult, I can tell you!
Isn’t orange the colour that inmates wear in American prisons? They are probably some kind of prison statement designed to be sold to american wannabe gangstas
How dim do you have to be to need your shoes chained to your feet while you yet wear them to avoid losing them?
“But, under no circumstances should you apologise to these cretins, that only encourages them.”
You did read the description of the shoe, right? Their target market _is_ cretins! Who else would buy shoes like those?
Besides, this is Adidas. Like Reebok, Nike, et al, they’re in the business of selling shoes and other apparel to cretins who think it’s perfectly fine to *pay* to advertise said company’s business (and its logo) to their friends.
Different set of cretins, I presume…
I too find the professional offendees more than somewhat irritating.
However, winding them up really can brighten up an otherwise dull day – even if it IS like shooting fish in a barrel…
😈
Is it possible that this backing down is actually an excuse to withdraw an utterly naff product? Is it possible that the product was only marketed in the first place to create some publicity? My thought is that Adidas didn’t become a market leader without having some idea what they were doing. I have some difficulty imagining what kind of moron would want to wear these shoes, but then we do have a whole load of people walking around with their pants down.
…what kind of moron would want to wear these shoes?
Summer street fashion in my local town is a tasteful combination of tattoos and electronic tags set off by 3/4 length trousers worn, as you describe, with the waistband just north of the testicles.
It’s surely only a matter of time before someone starts marketing fake tags, aimed at those who desire the street cred but have so far been disappointed to be let off.
I bet those shoes would sell like hot cakes here.