Targeting Pride ~ The Follow Up by Jennifer Kate

Jennifer from Slap Shots Fired back with another blog, and as I promised if there was a big update in this story I would follow up. A lot is going on with this story, and it unfortunately only gets worse before it gets better. In this day and age, you, unfortunately, can’t win.

Let’s start with a Pride Brand Creator whose Pride items were pulled from the shelves and said he was relieved when his Pride items were pulled.

The creator's name is Erik Carnell, who created the brand Abprallen. Carnell was super excited when a distributor reached out about possibly placing his Abprallen in Target. Just a quick note, all three of his Pride items were for adults. These items include a sweater, a tote bag, and a messenger bag.

All of Carnell's excitement changed about a week and a half ago when he started to receive hundreds of death threats. Carnell claims that some of those death threats are incorrect, claiming that Carnell’s collection was targeting children. Target had since pulled Carnell’s entire collection from its US stores and online market.

Once his items were pulled, Carnell said his immediate reaction was a relief. If I’m being honest this is insane and it’s crazy to think that it’s 2023 and homophobia is still so high and only seems to be getting higher.

Target has lost a lot of money since pulling certain Pride-based items off their shelves. Target lost $13.8 billion in the last two weeks since angry social media users called for a boycott of the Minneapolis-based retailer over its rollout of the Pride Collection featuring LGBTQIA+-friendly clothing for children. We all know that these big-name brand companies are all about the money! This is the lowest level of loss in almost three years.

I do think in 2023 people should be more accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community, and that includes Pride merchandise, Pride parades, and other Pride events. I’m not going to lie to you guys. I do partly blame Target for not taking more of a stand with the LGBTQIA+ community because they constantly say they are allies, but I doubt they are because if they were, they would do something about people destroying the Pride display. But we also have to remember that big corporate companies only care about one thing: money.

If there are any more updates I'm sure I'll be back with another follow-up blog.