If we ever need more proof that the over-used and by now, a bit naff ‘Keep Calm And…’ slogan needed to just go away, this is it.
It was kind of witty and clever at the start. Taken from an old moral boosting poster that was used by the British government during World War II, ‘Keep Calm And Carry On’ has been plastered on everything and anything in the last couple of years. From mugs to tea towels, we just couldn’t get enough of it.
But with every great slogan come the spin-offs and people started to attach the ‘Keep Calm’ slogan to anything and everything. ‘Keep Calm And Have A Curry, ‘Keep Calm And Put The Kettle On’, ‘Keep Calm And Put The Bins Out’… You get the idea.
And, it was perhaps inevitable that opportunistic companies would capitalize on the new ‘Keep Calm’ craze, by letting customers create their own slogans.
But one company that lets customers do just that, has come under fire after it was discovered that the options include highly offensive phrases relating to rape and domestic violence.
The company in question – Solid Gold Bomb, which operates via Amazon – sells its short-sleeved t-shirts for between £15 and £17 and was alerted to the fact via customers making complaints on their Facebook page.
Some of the slogans which have caused the most offence include ‘Keep Calm And Rape A Lot’ and ‘Keep Calm And Hit Her’ but Solid Gold Bomb said it had no idea such phrases were even in existence and claim that all slogans are generated via an automated computer system.
Fashion FAIL – Who would even buy these t-shirts?
In a statement on their website, the company said, “Any offensive items that are remaining are certainly in the deletion queue and will be removed as soon as the processing is complete. Although we did not in any way deliberately create the offensive t-shirts in question and it was the result of a scripted programming process that was compiled by only one member of our staff, we accept the responsibility of the error and our doing our best to correct the issues at hand.
“We’re sorry for the ill feeling this has caused! We’re doing our best here to fix the problem.”
Amazon’s sale policies say that in terms of offensive material: “Amazon reserves the right to determine the appropriateness of listings posted to our site.”
“In general, images that portray nudity in a gratuitous or graphic manner are prohibited.
“Amateur pornography, pornography, X-rated movies, and hard-core material including magazines are also prohibited.”
The offensive t-shirt slogans have now been removed from the site except for one – ‘Keep Calm And Hit Her’ was still available for purchase this morning.
Hopefully it will get to the top of the company’s automated deletion queue soon…
