Target caves to right-wing terrorism, removes Pride merchandise for employee safety

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Target pulls some LGBTQ+ merchandise from stores ahead of June Pride month after threats to workers

Target is removing certain items from its stores and making other changes to its LGBTQ+ merchandise nationwide ahead of Pride month, after an intense backlash from some customers including violent confrontations with its workers.

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement Tuesday. ”Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

[7,052,770]

This is the Walsh-DeSantis-Raichik America that Republicans and their useful stooges are bringing about.

[jojoju1998]

What are the chances that some Republicans are deeply closeted themselves ? Hence their intense homophobia ?

[DaleCooper]

I blame the evil corporate notion of "The customer is always right" for the uncivilized savagery of American shoppers. It used to be that if you walked into a general store and started talking a bunch of sh-t and threatening people, the owner would throw your ass out or go grab his shotgun and demand you never step foot in their establishment again.

Now a patron can be flipping over entire displays of merchandise or screaming in the face of an employee and the manager just says, "Excuse me sir, please calm down." People would not behave this way if they didn't know they could get away with it.

[Crumpets]

If they had wanted to avoid threats, maybe they shouldn't have called their store "Target" and put a giant bullseye on the outside of all their buildings. Just a thought.

More seriously, I can't speak for Target employees, but I have a feeling if a store I had worked in had ever pulled this kind of BS, it would have resulted in a lot of pushback from the workers, who tend to be younger and more diverse than management, and (generally) more likely to be vocally pro-LGBT+ both in private and in public.

[Damocles]

What are the chances that some Republicans are deeply closeted themselves ? Hence their intense homophobia ?

I swear it's every other day I hear something about "Far-right wing homophobic Republican politician from a hard-R state gets their back blown out by 12 femboy twinks in a Waffle House bathroom" or something

[Person Man]

What are the chances that some Republicans are deeply closeted themselves ? Hence their intense homophobia ?

Don’t ask questions you know the answers to.

[It’s so Joever]

I blame the evil corporate notion of "The customer is always right" for the uncivilized savagery of American shoppers. It used to be that if you walked into a general store and started talking a bunch of sh-t and threatening people, the owner would throw your ass out or go grab his shotgun and demand you never step foot in their establishment again.

Now a patron can be flipping over entire displays of merchandise or screaming in the face of an employee and the manager just says, "Excuse me sir, please calm down." People would not behave this way if they didn't know they could get away with it.

Employees should be perfectly allowed to tell a customer to f**k themselves. It’s a shame what we force our service workers to endure.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I blame the evil corporate notion of "The customer is always right" for the uncivilized savagery of American shoppers. It used to be that if you walked into a general store and started talking a bunch of sh-t and threatening people, the owner would throw your ass out or go grab his shotgun and demand you never step foot in their establishment again.

Now a patron can be flipping over entire displays of merchandise or screaming in the face of an employee and the manager just says, "Excuse me sir, please calm down." People would not behave this way if they didn't know they could get away with it.

It's all part of the neverending unraveling of the consequences system in our society.  Used to be if you went in a store and stole something, or destroyed property, or harassed and abused other people, you would be arrested, or attacked by security.  Now you just have some chubby unarmed guard watch you with a bored expression while repeatedly asking you to please stop and please leave.  Of course a large portion of the population will desperately twist themselves into knots to sympathize with you and justify your behavior, or simply say the store deserved it.

[DaleCooper]

I blame the evil corporate notion of "The customer is always right" for the uncivilized savagery of American shoppers. It used to be that if you walked into a general store and started talking a bunch of sh-t and threatening people, the owner would throw your ass out or go grab his shotgun and demand you never step foot in their establishment again.

Now a patron can be flipping over entire displays of merchandise or screaming in the face of an employee and the manager just says, "Excuse me sir, please calm down." People would not behave this way if they didn't know they could get away with it.

Employees should be perfectly allowed to tell a customer to f**k themselves. It’s a shame what we force our service workers to endure.

The vast majority of the country would have so much respect for them if they did. A viral video in which a cashier tells a mean, entitled customer to go to hell would be about the only thing that could unite the entire internet these days.

[Hammy]

"For employee/student/etc safety" seems to be the latest go-to excuse for censoring lgbt existence, while also excusing threats to safety by caving

[Del Tachi]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories. 

[Del Tachi]

More seriously, I can't speak for Target employees, but I have a feeling if a store I had worked in had ever pulled this kind of BS, it would have resulted in a lot of pushback from the workers, who tend to be younger and more diverse than management, and (generally) more likely to be vocally pro-LGBT+ both in private and in public.

What are the employees supposed to do against a corporate behemoth like Target? 

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories. 

Aw those sound cool

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

In seriousness this whole endeavor just shows how performative corporate sponsored Pride is. If it’s not profitable then they’re gonna drop us like a rock

[T'Chenka]

I've dealt with extreme culture warriors at work and it's exhausting. I dealt with one today actually. They're usually insanely entitled.

[Crumpets]

More seriously, I can't speak for Target employees, but I have a feeling if a store I had worked in had ever pulled this kind of BS, it would have resulted in a lot of pushback from the workers, who tend to be younger and more diverse than management, and (generally) more likely to be vocally pro-LGBT+ both in private and in public.

What are the employees supposed to do against a corporate behemoth like Target? 

What indeed.

[Ferguson97]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories. 

And why are these items worthy of boycott?

[lfromnj]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories.  

And why are these items worthy of boycott?

A.All terrorists here need to be arrested and locked up with the key thrown away if they were violent or made such threats
B. Tuck friendly swimsuits are fine, its better than the Dylan Mulvaney option of everyone having to normalize dick bulges.

C. The Satan stuff wasn't merely some shirt with the devil but an actual partnership target entered into with an actual Satanist. Satanism is basically a peak own the con move as the concept of Satan comes from Judaism/Christainity/Islam so not sure why one has to say they support Satan. I'm fine with satanic imagery and I can't exactly oppose Satanism as a non Abrahamicist but its kinda weird and I get why Christians oppose it. Extremely dumb move for Target to promote this stuff in the front of their stores.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/23/target-partners-with-satanist-brand-for-pride-collection/amp/

[Del Tachi]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories. 

And why are these items worthy of boycott?

Anything Satan-themed is immediately pretty weird and calls into question the sensitivities of whoever made it. 

[dead0man]

1.who cares?  One way or the other.
1a.you don't have to buy this sh**t
1b.you can buy them at places other than Target
2.wearing "satan" themed gear is what 13 year olds do who don't dare properly rebel, it's the equivalent of green hair.  It's better to just ignore it, they'll grow out of it.  Or they won't.  It's not your problem.
3.boycots are "terrorism" now?  Interesting story.

[CookieDamage]

This will just result in more people being turned off from going here. The culture war people werent going here anyways other than to harass people and this move will do nothing to bring them back and will only alienate normal people.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Use your brains guys. They're removing these things because the demand for them isn't there. If they were profitable they would keep selling them.

More often than not, this logic is correctly invoked when it's favorable to the social progress agenda ("diverse movie casts is a product of demand, not top-down wokeness"). Live by the supply-demand curve, die by the supply-demand curve.

[Meclazine for Israel]

This has everything to with profit, the ultimate goal of any market animal.

In some markets, LGBQT branding does not sell the goods.  Light beer is a good example.



From a pure marketing perspective, when you run a business, you need to ask yourself:

"Who is our customer?"

"What is it that we are saying to sell to our customer?"

"What problem does our product solve for the customer?"

Some marketing executives have now taken it upon themselves to push a social movement or their political bias within their products and onto their customers.

These appear to be established brands where they are looking to 'freshen up' their product line with the latest social movement.

There is nothing inherently wrong with trying that.

But, and this gets back to our basic questions above...

If the US is 46% Republican and 46% Democrat, and these two groups both buy your product in a social setting, then why would you deliberately piss one of these groups up the wall with what they find nauseating?

Guy Discusses Target Product Range

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CseoWj4AlA_/

When you alienate 46% of your customers with your marketing, then you lose profit, and in the case of Bud Light, longer term market share. Coors and Miller executives will get big bonuses this year.

Conversely, as an example, McDonalds are not going to wrap their burgers in paper with a message with Ron DeSantis' photo with the message underneath reading "Don't Say Gay" or his latest diatripe.



It's blatant political dross infiltrating the marketing department who have completely forgotten about the basic questions mentioned above.

It's simple business management 101.

[ProudModerate2]

Apparently the two items that Target is removing will be "tuck friendly" women's swimsuits and Satan-themed LGBTQ+ accessories. 

And why are these items worthy of boycott?

Anything Satan-themed is immediately pretty weird and calls into question the sensitivities of whoever made it. 

What exactly is "Satan-themed"?
In the 80's, we wore heavy metal (band) T-shirts, and many of them were considered to be "Satan-themed," by kooky Conservatives in those days. Bands like Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Dio, Celtic Frost, etc.

There are new bands today that are heavy metal or death metal, who still produce their shirts or album covers with a Satan-theme.