Black Milk Clothing Social Media Faux Pas

[leifastagsweed]

I found this an interesting emerging story about the Black Milk Clothing Company (http://blackmilkclothing.com/) that makes the cool Star Wars and fantasy leggings which are so popular right now. (side note - I hab two pairs that I love, albeit mine are knockoffs (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?45455-Shoes-Shoes-Shoes&p=1655875#post1655875)). There's a big social media blitz regarding their response to criticism over a meme that they put on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/blackmilkclothing) and then subsequently defended until things got out of hand. Here are two articles that I found about it that I enjoyed musing over, as well as the original meme:

http://marc-irl.tumblr.com/post/84807320527/social-media-when-to-back-down

http://jacquicollins.tumblr.com/post/84701497155/black-milks-social-media-expectation-vs-reality-part

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/black-milk-geek-clothing-brand-sorry-over-star-wars-day-facebook-meme-1447384

https://31.media.tumblr.com/7a5033b356a2be7a991284db1065b80f/tumblr_inline_n51kc3sXdA1r0lvsw.jpg

I was not at all bent by the meme because I think both chicks are hot, but I read some of the mods responses on their page and thought, yeah, that person is kind of a dick. That guy probably needs a hand slap, but the boycott flurry is a bit out of hand.

I also still really love their leggings and clothes, but think they are overpriced as I always have. I will continue to buy knockoffs for cheap from people in China who will at least get paid direct for their cheap labor this way using BM's great ideas.

Thoughts about the controversy?

[Tisket]

Tempest in a teapot.

Fucking first world problems.

[Allereli]

I really liked this quote from the 2nd link:


Give the definition of this meme, one can easily understand how individuals viewing this post on your Facebook page would interpret Lo’s post as calling the model shot on the left the Win, while referring to the Amy character from Big Bang Theory the Fail. In fact, if your social media gurus are well-acquainted with memes (and they should be, given their job description, and even more so if they are going to utilize them), then they will have already known that this is the only logical conclusion to be drawn from this image.

This is problematic because Black Milk is a company that has stated many times that its goal is to empower women, to give them confidence. The image can be assumed to be based on nothing more than looks, given that the Amy character has a personality that can be learned from watching the show whereas the woman on the left is a mystery to most, if not all of us. She even appears to be a mystery to the Black Milk employees on the Facebook page, as I have not yet seen any of them call her by her name, even while they do know and use the name Amy for the image on the right.

I've never heard of the company but I think it did turn on its customers after claiming a commitment to customers' healthy body self images for so many years. There likely would have been no outrage if it was Maxim doing the posting.


4. We LOVE our customers, but yes, we believe that if you get really upset by the way we do things, you should probably move on and not be a part of what we are doing. That's not mean, that's just to save all of us more frustration!

I don't think people would have gotten really upset if they didn't start ban hammering any semi-critical poster.

[leifastagsweed]

I feel like a potential solution to their problems would be for Mayim Bialik to pose in that R2D2 suit and extra makeup. I don't know if it'd stop the whiners, but I'd schwing.

[Allereli]

I feel like a potential solution to their problems would be for Mayim Bialik to pose in that R2D2 suit and extra makeup. I don't know if it'd stop the whiners, but I'd schwing.

I don't think that's a solution. The company says it does not allow the mocking of body types/sizes on its site, it shouldn't have posted a "win/fail" meme where the fail is someone dressed plainly with less money invested in her hair.

[Ker_Thwap]

Every single young woman is wearing the exact same porn star makeup these days, it's getting kind of boring. It's actually nice to see the cleaner look once in a while.


Damn, I'm getting old.

[iJin]

Amy is super hot, what are they talking about.