Cotton On – are you on CRACK?

Yesterday, I was contacted by MM reader, Elizabeth, who was upset at the latest slogan t-shirt she saw at Cotton On Kids  AND IT’S WORSE THAN “I’m a tits man”…

Check this out – Elizabeth and her mother were shopping at the Cotton On Kids store in Kotara and was aghast to see a baby t-shirt with the slogan: “They Shake Me”

I think my eyes just exploded and I lost the ability to type. Oh wait! Back again! Just in time to say this:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elizabeth contacted the store via email and wrote the following:

The response she got was standard fob-off stuff – no doubt prepared after the furore that ignited a couple of weeks ago over their other charming t-shirts with slogans such as “I’m A Tits Man” and “Living Proof My Mum Is Easy”.

So she wrote back, asking the company to clarify whether they were, in fact, endorsing or making a joke about child abuse – shaking babies, in case you didn’t know – is responsible for the brain damage and death of babies every year.

IS THAT FUNNY, COTTON ON? IS IT? IS IT FUNNY TO JOKE ABOUT BABIES BEING ABUSED???? (they’re my words, not Elizabeth’s – she was far more restrained and polite).

And this is the response she got back:

I am not going to publish the name or email address of the ‘marketing assistant’ who sent these emails because let’s be kind and assume that she is merely the messenger, not the decision-maker. What’s truly frightening is how many people along the Cotton On food chain must have approved this line and this slogan in particular.

What the hell are you people thinking and how dare you try to turn
children into the sickest kind of human billboards to advertise your
smart arse and grossly insensitive slogans?

What’s next Cotton On? Kids t-shirts that say “My Parents Sexually Abuse Me”?  Or what about “My Parents Bash Me”? That would be hilarious, wouldn’t it!!

Internet, I am outraged, disgusted and distressed. I am a customer of Cotton On Kids. A long-time, loyal customer who buys a STACK of clothes there for my kids and who willingly endorses their products FOR FREE whenever I am interviewed by the media and asked where I buy my kids clothes.

But Cotton On? Listen hard. I will not be setting foot inside any of your stores – not your kids stores or your adult stores or your Rubi shoes stores – until you discontinue this appalling line of slogan t-shirts and issue some kind of apology.

You might also like to think about making a donation to Childrens’ Hospitals around Australia who face the grim reality of babies who HAVE been shaken. Sometimes to death.

If you share my feelings, and those of Elizabeth, I encourage you to vote with your wallet and to share your thoughts and purchasing decisions with Cotton On via email RIGHT HERE.

If that link doesn’t work, the email address is: customerenquiries@cottonon.com.au

And please forward and Re-tweet this post to everyone you know who shops at Cotton On Kids.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who read this post and forwarded it and re-tweeted it and contacted Cotton On….our voices were finally heard this afternoon. Having made all major TV news and radio bulletins and featured on all news websites, Cotton On have withdrawn the t-shirts from sale with a rather extraordindary statement:

The Australian reported at 4pm Friday…

While I’m glad we have forced their hand and the clothes have been withdrawn, I think their statement is a cop-out. Trying to excuse their manufacture of these slogan t-shirts as being “driven by demand” is a lot like a drug dealer claiming that he only sells drugs because people want to buy them.

There will always be fools who buy things. That doesn’t mean you have to demean yourself – and everyone else – by catering to that sick minority and making jokes at the expense of dead and brain damaged children. Children like  Lincoln, who Caroline Overington has written about here.

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