Mad about BP and want to… wear it? The company’s oil spill disaster is turning out to be a boon for satirists. Parody products are using the company’s logo and applying their own funny sayings on everything from tote bags on Etsy to mugs from Zazzle.
From CNN:
Despair Inc., a popular retailer of black-humored merchandise, got into the game early, releasing a t-shirt three weeks ago with the slogan “BP: We’re bringing oil to American shores.”
A typical bestselling product moves a few hundred units for the small, Austin-based company. The BP design has sold a close to 2,000 shirts, according to Lawrence Kersten, Despair’s co-founder. “When you have a combination of cultural relevance and wittiness and cultural appeal, people respond,” Kersten says of the shirts’ raging success. Despair recently added a second shirt to its BP line, depicting the sunny BP logo dripping with oil.
Anger over the BP oil spill is even spilling over into Twitter. A fake Twitter feed, @BPGlobalPR, is taking aim at BP and gaining in popularity. Among the tweets: “Eating at a very expensive restaurant and spilled salad dressing on my pants. Not sure how to tackle this,” and “Please do not take any oil you find on the beach. It’s the property of British Petroleum and we will sue.” It currently has 31,306 followers. That compares to just 5,144 for the actual BP Twitter.
Have you bought any of these items? Would you?
Follow our coverage of the BP oil spill here. And here’s a link to our official Twitter account.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
