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Designer Tweets Egyptian Riots Due to His New Line Coming Out

Posted by samzenpus on from the foot-in-mouth dept.

Famous shoe designer Kenneth Cole stuck his fabulously shod foot into his mouth by tweeting, "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online..." After an uproar from people who don't think revolution jokes are funny, he issued the following tweet: "we weren't intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment."

13 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. The /. crowd is no better by mr100percent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People will always be idiots. If you go back and read the slashdot stories on 9/11/2001 there were morons who were posting "Someone set up us the bomb!"

    I suppose this one is more newsworthy by the fact that he put his real name on it and it's unusually tacky for someone considered so professional.

    1. Re:The /. crowd is no better by MozeeToby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If he would have left the hashtag out probably no one would have cared. Yes, it's still tasteless, but at least it wouldn't have been clogging up the Cairo feeds with advertising. That takes it from tasteless to complete assholishness; it isn't the joke IMO, it's the fact that he was using interest in the revolution to sell his product.

    2. Re:The /. crowd is no better by Zironic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fuck political correctness, if people want to joke about the revolution let them.

    3. Re:The /. crowd is no better by Locke2005 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Joking is one thing. Using the revolution to pimp your new line of shoes goes way beyond comedy, into the realm of douche-baggery and assholery. While on the one hand, "Any publicity is good publicity!", on the other hand, I hope many people that hear of this will boycott him. So I'm not sure whether being a douche represents a net gain or net loss to his business. I wasn't going to buy any of his shoes anyway, and my wife... well, let's just say she already owns more pairs of shoes than Imelda Marcos, but I doubt she'd be willing to pay this asshat's prices.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    4. Re:The /. crowd is no better by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And it was funny as hell, as this is.

      I mean, the guy is in an industry where dry sarcasm and snarky wit rules the day.

      People who are "offended' by this have either never been really offended, or need to find a hobby.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:The /. crowd is no better by bonch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would you hope others boycott him? Why do you care if he jokes about Cairo to announce a new line of shoes? How does it affect your life, and who is he hurting by it? America has become a country full of wimps feigning outrage and looking for meaningless causes to take up.

  2. Well done, enraged folks by fridaynightsmoke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Congratulations. By retweeting and posting news stories about this, you've given this designer guy undreamed of publicity. I'm sure he's gutted.

    --
    This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
  3. Someone's gotta do it... by Onuma · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Heaven forbid anyone actually makes light of a situation. I'm sure it's no carnival being in Cairo right now, but if it were anyone other than a famous person making that comment, most other people would have simply laughed it away. Now we've got a guy who thought it would be opportune to make a joke (albeit a slightly off-color joke) backpedaling and issuing half-serious apologies.

    Someone got butt-hurt about it and everyone dog piled Kenneth Cole. Get over it already!

    --
    What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
    1. Re:Someone's gotta do it... by Stregano · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The difference was that what he did was not really a joke. It was a way for him to get people who were using that feed to see his advertisement. Makes jokes in the feed all you want, but DON"T sit there dropping ads in it and then trying to backtrack to say it was a joke.

      --
      The world is how you make it
  4. Who cares? by SkankinMonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought it was funny without making fun of the protesters or anyone involved. It's clear they weren't being serious....why so uptight planet earth?

  5. Uh by saihung · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment."
    No, I'm pretty sure that's not true. But that's fine guys, go on turning out Chinese sweatshop products anyway. I'm sure someone will be stupid enough to buy them.

  6. Lol by scubamage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I personally think its funny. In poor taste yes, but still funny.

  7. We need to laugh sometimes by Crag · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Two hypothetical 9/11inspried scenarios:

    1) 3000 people die at the hands of random extremists and nobody makes any jokes.

    2) 3000 people die at the hands of random extremists and someone references AYBABTU.

    I like the second scenario better. I probably won't laugh if I know a victim, but other people's laughter doesn't hurt me.

    Not laughing at tragedy doesn't make it less tragic. Laughing is one of the ways people cope. There is no harm in growing a thicker skin. We can still have feelings and care about life without revering life. Death happens.

    Life is for the living. Cry until you laugh, laugh until you can't breath then sleep it off and move on.