In 1970, during the midst of the Vietnam War, the Ohio National Guard shot a group of unarmed Kent State University students protesting the violence of the Cambodian Campaign. Four students died, and nine were injured. This tragedy, known as the Kent State shooting, led to a wave of violent youth protests across the country, and Americans were struck by the bloody horror.
Forty-four years later, Urban Outfitters is selling a little “souvenir” of the infamous shooting. Priced at $129, the “Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt” is just like any other Kent State University sweatshirt, only it is spattered with fake blood in an obvious reference to the tragic shootings. Placed into the store website’s “Urban Renewal Vintage” category, only one sweatshirt was available for purchase, reserved for whichever wannabe ironic, 15-year-old hipster could convince their parents to buy it for them first.
Buzzfeed released the story on Sept. 15 at about 2:08 a.m., and the item was listed as “sold out” by about 2:15 a.m.
Despite the item’s quick sale, it did not take long for the product to gain some negative backlash. Internet bloggers, tweeters and a variety of news mediums accused Urban Outfitters of being insensitive to tragedy. Kent State University even released its own public statement expressing its offense.
“We take great offense to a company using our pain for their publicity and profit. This item is beyond poor taste and trivializes a loss of life that still hurts the Kent State community today,” the university stated. “We invite the leaders of this company as well as anyone who invested in this item to tour our May 4 Visitors Center, which opened two years ago, to gain perspective on what happened 44 years ago and apply its meaning to the future.”
To their credit, Urban Outfitters pulled the item off its website and issued a public apology.
“Urban Outfitters sincerely apologizes for any offense our Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt may have caused,” the company stated in an apology via Twitter. “It was never our intention to allude to the tragic events that took place at Kent State in 1970, and we are extremely saddened that this item was perceived as such. The one-of-a-kind item was purchased as part of our sun-faded vintage collection.”
Seems innocent enough, but this isn’t the first time Urban Outfitters has offended large groups of people with risqué clothing items. In 2010, the company manufactured a t-shirt with the phrase “Eat Less” branded across the front, prompting “One Tree Hill” actress Sophia Bush to boycott the store for promoting eating disorders to their young and impressionable clientele.
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And in 2012, the company offended Jewish groups everywhere by selling a yellow t-shirt embroidered with a six-pointed Jewish star on the breast pocket, an obvious reference to the badges Hitler forced Jewish people to wear during the Nazi regime. Were these offensive products really all accidents?
Urban Outfitters is a notably successful company with a clear sales strategy to target teenagers and young adults. Their hipster branding techniques are obvious, from their store layouts to the flannel-clad sales associates roaming the stores. Based on their 2014 revenue of $3.1 billion, the company clearly knows what it’s doing. It’s not as if the company is operated by a pack of idiots without filters. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that at least one executive was not aware that the bloody Kent State sweatshirt and other offensive products were bound to cause some controversy.
In fact, one could take it a step further. It is plausible that Urban Outfitters knew exactly what they were doing when they put these clothing items up for sale. Press, whether positive or negative, is press, and Urban Outfitters got a lot of it each time the public criticized one of its sales items. Even with Sophia Bush attempting to promote a boycott against the company, statistics show their sales have only increased each year.
People know the brand has a history of offending, but they continue to stock their closets with the company’s ironic graphic tees and slouchy sweaters. Sure, people can vote with their wallets and stop buying from Urban Outfitters in protest, but most of the company’s market is teenagers who wants to look cool. Unfortunately for societal morals, Urban Outfitters is still considered cool.
Perhaps this offend-apologize technique can be chalked up to good, albeit tasteless, marketing. They may be getting criticized, but it’s possible Urban Outfitters got exactly what they wanted when they put that bloodstained sweatshirt up for sale. And it’s possible we at The Daily Free Press are unwittingly contributing to an increase in the company’s revenues by writing this editorial in the first place.
