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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 10:31:14 GMT -5
I’m obviously not going to put the shirt here because of the political connotations to it (let’s say it involves the letters L, G and B) but…PWTees had a real “Hold my beer” moment today.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Mar 28, 2022 10:35:32 GMT -5
I don't know, it's hard for me to get too up in arms towards these companies over some of these shirts. I always viewed PWT as a YouTube but for shirts. You can put one up and they'll make it if people buy it. I don't dislike YouTube because there's a lot of stupid stuff up there. As long as they have something resembling a standard towards active hate speech against minorities, then it is what it is.
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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 11:08:48 GMT -5
I don't know, it's hard for me to get too up in arms towards these companies over some of these shirts. I always viewed PWT as a YouTube but for shirts. You can put one up and they'll make it if people buy it. I don't dislike YouTube because there's a lot of stupid stuff up there. As long as they have something resembling a standard towards active hate speech against minorities, then it is what it is. I think the problem is that it isn’t really like that. PWT has a vetting process where you have to have a certain amount of followers and such before you get a shirt printed because brands and known talent are important which was got people going to WAM in the first place because they had laxer standards about who could get in and encouraged indie talent to do it, especially people of different races and sexual orientations. Like, I get it’s a store and they need to appeal to people but at the same time, if WAM are going to make a big deal about being the rebellious company and appealing to a marginalized audience and people who wouldn’t get a shot on PWT and then turn around and welcome in shirts that potentially go against that message, it makes those same users feel like they’re just there as customers and not give the connotation you’re advocating for these things. And especially with WAM, their silence about it says a tonne about their stance without actually confirming anything.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Mar 28, 2022 11:50:33 GMT -5
I don't know, it's hard for me to get too up in arms towards these companies over some of these shirts. I always viewed PWT as a YouTube but for shirts. You can put one up and they'll make it if people buy it. I don't dislike YouTube because there's a lot of stupid stuff up there. As long as they have something resembling a standard towards active hate speech against minorities, then it is what it is. I think the problem is that it isn’t really like that. PWT has a vetting process where you have to have a certain amount of followers and such before you get a shirt printed because brands and known talent are important which was got people going to WAM in the first place because they had laxer standards about who could get in and encouraged indie talent to do it, especially people of different races and sexual orientations. Like, I get it’s a store and they need to appeal to people but at the same time, if WAM are going to make a big deal about being the rebellious company and appealing to a marginalized audience and people who wouldn’t get a shot on PWT and then turn around and welcome in shirts that potentially go against that message, it makes those same users feel like they’re just there as customers and not give the connotation you’re advocating for these things. And especially with WAM, their silence about it says a tonne about their stance without actually confirming anything. I totally get that and it's more complex than the analogy I gave. I guess I just feel like these decisions aren't always easy or black/white. I get why people are frustrated with these shirts but I also don't know what standard could exist to exclude these. Like I honestly have no idea what the WAM shirt was trying to say other than being a generic Christian/pro-police shirt. This PWT shirt is clearly political so maybe they should have an apolitical standard but beyond that, it's a tricky world where I don't think there are always right answers.
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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 11:52:28 GMT -5
Also to add, as I think of it, it isn't like there are dozens of these sorts of places popping up. If you're not on WAM or PWT, you're on Big Cartel and if you're not there, you're on Etsy or paying your own money to do your own store. It's not like these people can just move somewhere else because the original "somewhere else" decided to drop the ball and there's nowhere else right now. Hell, the UK and Ireland had Squared Circle tees and they haven't opened back up since the pandemic started.
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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 11:55:10 GMT -5
I totally get that and it's more complex than the analogy I gave. I guess I just feel like these decisions aren't always easy or black/white. I get why people are frustrated with these shirts but I also don't know what standard could exist to exclude these. Like I honestly have no idea what the WAM shirt was trying to say other than being a generic Christian/pro-police shirt. This PWT shirt is clearly political so maybe they should have an apolitical standard but beyond that, it's a tricky world where I don't think there are always right answers. Like...the right answer is to not have the shirt since, from what we've seen, it has nothing to do with wrestling. Or if it's from a company or a person, f***ing tell people who they are instead of ignoring them. I don't think it's as hard as you make it out to be here. Like, the answer to "What is the standard we should have for our store?" is to have one in the first place, to be quite blunt here.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Mar 28, 2022 11:59:22 GMT -5
I totally get that and it's more complex than the analogy I gave. I guess I just feel like these decisions aren't always easy or black/white. I get why people are frustrated with these shirts but I also don't know what standard could exist to exclude these. Like I honestly have no idea what the WAM shirt was trying to say other than being a generic Christian/pro-police shirt. This PWT shirt is clearly political so maybe they should have an apolitical standard but beyond that, it's a tricky world where I don't think there are always right answers. Like...the right answer is to not have the shirt since, from what we've seen, it has nothing to do with wrestling. Or if it's from a company or a person, f***ing tell people who they are instead of ignoring them. I don't think it's as hard as you make it out to be here. I think that's a fair standard. It's probably best for the companies to avoid these sorts of shirts in general. I do think though that a lot of the backlash wasn't because a wrestling company had a non-wrestling shirt. It was the messaging. And people are in the right to have their thoughts about the messaging. But deciding which shirts go up based on the message can be tricky, so best to avoid all of it but I imagine they don't because the more shirts that go up equals more money for them.
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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 12:02:31 GMT -5
Like...the right answer is to not have the shirt since, from what we've seen, it has nothing to do with wrestling. Or if it's from a company or a person, f***ing tell people who they are instead of ignoring them. I don't think it's as hard as you make it out to be here. I think that's a fair standard. It's probably best for the companies to avoid these sorts of shirts in general. I do think though that a lot of the backlash wasn't because a wrestling company had a non-wrestling shirt. It was the messaging. And people are in the right to have their thoughts about the messaging. But deciding which shirts go up based on the message can be tricky, so best to avoid all of it but I imagine they don't because the more shirts that go up equals more money for them. I mean, it isn't. Like, I don't mean to make a Godwin-Esque comparison here and I absolutely don't think it's the same thing remotely but to put it simply, if you have a rally for any cause and a Nazi flag shows up and you don't tell them to f*** off, your rally is a Nazi one. If you put up a shirt that has connotations of stuff that make people of various genders and races feel a certain way and you don't pull it or try to rectify it...that's what your store is now.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Mar 28, 2022 12:06:56 GMT -5
I think that's a fair standard. It's probably best for the companies to avoid these sorts of shirts in general. I do think though that a lot of the backlash wasn't because a wrestling company had a non-wrestling shirt. It was the messaging. And people are in the right to have their thoughts about the messaging. But deciding which shirts go up based on the message can be tricky, so best to avoid all of it but I imagine they don't because the more shirts that go up equals more money for them. I mean, it isn't. Like, I don't mean to make a Godwin-Esque comparison here and I absolutely don't think it's the same thing remotely but to put it simply, if you have a rally for any cause and a Nazi flag shows up and you don't tell them to f*** off, your rally is a Nazi one. If you put up a shirt that has connotations of stuff that make people of various genders and races feel a certain way and you don't pull it or try to rectify it...that's what your store is now. I think you're largely right here, I just find issues like this miss some complexity when discussed in places like Twitter but I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Mar 28, 2022 12:13:57 GMT -5
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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 12:19:35 GMT -5
Skimming enough of it, this is a statement they would have mocked Pro Wrestling Tees for doing. Like, there's not reading the room and then there's stumbling in blindfolded and being surprised you broke furniture.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Mar 28, 2022 12:34:51 GMT -5
There's so many layers to that statement and I think a really amazing one is the idea that "Sales of this shirt benefit Folds of Honor", which just about any other shirt company would have happily broadcast and which would have defanged so much of this immediately. But they didn't do that, they just jumped right the hell ahead in being insane to everyone like somehow they should've been psychic and just thought this red flag stuff wasn't a red flag. That whole statement reads like someone tried to piss away every bit of good will they had and torch consumer trust in a brilliant fare of spite.
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Post by eJm on Mar 28, 2022 12:40:46 GMT -5
There's so many layers to that statement and I think a really amazing one is the idea that "Sales of this shirt benefit Folds of Honor", which just about any other shirt company would have happily broadcast and which would have defanged so much of this immediately. But they didn't do that, they just jumped right the hell ahead in being insane to everyone like somehow they should've been psychic and just thought this red flag stuff wasn't a red flag. That whole statement reads like someone tried to piss away every bit of good will they had and torch consumer trust in a brilliant fare of spite. Like...the thing that gets me, political connotations aside, was the fact they didn't promote this stuff from the off. Every wrestler who debuts a shirt there has a Twitter account, a picture of who they are and everything else. They plug them to at least give an idea of who these people are and promote the shirt. With this, they just gave a name, a picture of the design and it in different shirts. If it was for charity and it was for this big cause, say it from the off. Put a website or a social media account to find out more. Because what you did is scare off communities by basically telling them their concerns don't matter by not saying anything, taking days to say anything and then come up and say "your concerns actually don't matter, sorry". It also just comes off like it is in fact a one-man operation because if there isn't anyone else there that'd look at a name "United76" with that design and think "That might make people think twice" then you probably need to hire people with a bit of self-awareness of that. I don't even live in America and I even know something like that would send red flags and I'm as white and male as they come.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Mar 28, 2022 12:48:06 GMT -5
WAM appears to have never believed any variation of the old adage, “Keep your words short and sweet, you may have to eat them.”
To reference an old joke PWTees with their original goof essentially loaded a rifle and handed it over to WAM. Rather than shoot PWTees and take their business WAM turned the gun around and shot their own face off.
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Post by Magic knows Black Lives Matter on Mar 28, 2022 12:52:29 GMT -5
Why even bother if you have such a dog shit tone in your apology??? Honestly, truly, what good does that do?
What a petulant child move that only tells the customer base what a shithead you are
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Mar 28, 2022 12:54:15 GMT -5
Oof. Saying what your interpretation of the design is rather than letting the company that designed it speak for itself, and indeed concealing their identity altogether, does not help their case. The condescending "lol u mad?" tone is just crazy unprofessional. I can't imagine the shirt is making enough money for them to be the worth the backlash, so a simple "removing the design and moving on" statement would have done just fine.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2022 12:59:19 GMT -5
Yiiiiiiikes. Nothing makes me stop reading and completely discount a perspective and opinion quite like seeing the phrase "woke buzzwords."
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Mar 28, 2022 13:11:56 GMT -5
Just saw the Kanye West quote at the bottom.
1) They obviously are completely missing what people are upset about and are insisting on playing the victim.
2) Of all the people you could quote to make a similar point... The mentally ill guy who's been deep into a breakdown for at least the last year?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2022 13:32:20 GMT -5
That's... an almost impressive attempt to shoot oneself in the foot
No scratch that, head. They shot themselves in their corporate head.
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y4j1981
Dennis Stamp
Rowsdower
Posts: 4,656
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Post by y4j1981 on Mar 28, 2022 14:09:34 GMT -5
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