More Anti-Zombie Bigotry at Hot Topic
When I first heard about this ‘Night of the Living Grover’ shirt, I considered the possibility that it was a satirical look at Zombie prejudice, or, perhaps, the creeping kiddie-indoctrination menace that is Sesame Street.
(I kid, I kid; don’t worry, Andrew, I haven’t gone Tea Party on you.)
However, they give away the game a bit with their product description:
The zombie apocalypse has struck Sesame Street! Undead Grover stalks the night as the original cute Muppet. And he speaks in first person. Tickle him at your peril, Elmo.
Hot Topic just has a thing against Zombies. We’ve talked about their negative, Anti-Zombie merchandise before here at the ZRC blog.
However we also have a special grudge against marketing Anti-Zombie hate at children, or perhaps, in this case, highly impressionable and slightly glassy-eyed emo teenagers. I’m not sure how much substantive difference there is between those two groups anyway.
For shame, Hot Topic. Why couldn’t you stick to selling badly made Gir paraphernalia and t-shirts from bands that peaked when MTV still showed videos on a regular basis? Why try to catch up to the pop culture present after so many years not giving a toss? Hot Topic’s done well, apparently, pretending that Thundercats and Care Bears are the height of fashion, so why change things now? Stasis is your friend, Hot Topic. Stick to what you (kind of, sort of) know.
Instead, in a quite frankly futile effort to be topical, they provide us with yet *more* Zombie apocalypse nonsense, combined with actual children’s programming! Shame on you, Hot Topic, for trying to bring hatred for the Differently Animated onto Sesame Street. Granted, they haven’t been terribly inclusive of Zombies, but The Count has lived in peace with mortals for decades, so there’s a well of tolerance there we were hoping to tap into one day.
For shame.
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