11.18.10 - 2:30PM
- by
Cole Stryker

Hot Topic Takes Rage Guy Shirt Off Shelves Due to Masterful 4chan Racism Troll

topic:
Humor
Fashion
Art / Design

When I was a teenager, Hot Topic started stocking t-shirts featuring my favorite video game characters. I was sooo mad because earlier that year I had bought a Super Mario shirt at an obscure specialty store downtown and now all these tweens were copping my steez.

I know what it feels like to have your personal brand dilluted by mainstream exposure. It feels bad. So I empathize with these enterprising 4chan users who successfully subverted Hot Topic's cooption of their memes by turning the popular FFFUUUUU Ragetoon into a symbol of racism so the retailer would have no choice but to take it off the shelves.

When they found out that Hot Topic would be selling a shirt based on the ragetoon, 4chan trolls from the site's /b/ image board got to work turning "Rageguy," the most popular iteration of the meme (the one with that inimitable cry of "FFFUUUU"), into a racist cartoon. Of course I'm not going to post any here (Black people eating at KFC is a popular theme), but this is the original rallying cry:

It didn't take long for Hot Topic to relent. They said on their Facebook page:

Rage Guy is the character Hot Topic sells, see the original post from 1 year ago. The character focuses on interesting situations, check out the image gallery. Race Guy is the newest iteration posted this afternoon, today (the character everyone is talking about). Who created Race Guy? We don't know. Who created Rage Guy? We don't know. We sold the shirt because it is pop culture and the series was funny. Why not let our customers express they're interest in meme's? So now what? Well, Hot Topic is the last company to support racism. Hell, we support diversity and wear it proudly. Now that the character represents racism because of these unknown creators - we will no longer be selling it. After tonight (11/17), it will be removed from our website. Next week, it will be removed from our stores.

Successful trolls are successful.

But we want to know if you think it's gross that people are posting racist cartoons just to scare off a clothing chain. It's easy to say it's all in fun because it's only satire, but it's very possible that there are minorities out there who find even "pretend" racism to be more offensive than the mainstream exploitation of a meme.

Did /b/ just throw black users under the back of the bus? Let us know in the comments.

link:// Reddit
link:// Hot Topic announcement on Facebook
previously:// 4chan on Urlesque

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11.18.10

By KeepingYouAwake

Lowest Rank

It's sad, in general, for a group of any kind to think that something as fleeting and temporary as a meme belongs to them and that it's rational to fight with such tenacity as to offend unrelated parties in effort to get what they want. There is no /b/. There is a group of people with similar interests who share interest in that label, and that, in itself, is ok.

11.19.10

By tricky

Highest Rank

i generally have to agree with /b/ and the author about mainstream jumping on the bandwagon because it's mostly about making money rather than genuine interest. but i am also not a fan of selective appropriation (even if you did come up with it), and if people like it and want to buy into it, let them. in the end, it usually works out because it's all about survival of the fittest. and the online world tends to allow a fairer fight than irl. in this case /b/ won and hats off to them for getting their way. if this pretend racism offends people, then they should just stay off the internet.

11.20.10

By MW

Neutral

"Did /b/ just throw black users under the back of the bus?"

That's a terrible euphemism to use if you're concerned about media made in ill-taste.

What /b/ did was legit, they protested against their culture being capitalized on, using the tools they have used time and time again and know well. It makes a political comment on capitalism, and isn't their first - the piracy movement and /b/ are closely intertwined. Was it in bad taste? Sure. So if nearly EVERYTHING produced by /b/.