I dislike being censored by a company I do business with...Zazzle in this case, where the majority of my designs are distributed thru. Most of the time my vexations with Zazzle are upload/download issues or making sure that colors do not bleed thru or that my stuff is always at the bottom of their featured list or not show up at all.
I'm not worried about that as an artist; I'm a big boy and I can
hammer out color issues or upload/download and I'm not worried about their silly little online market...'cause I'm drinking Milk and someday some famous Rockstar is gonna be wearing my cool threads.
Unless of course, he or she never gets to see them in the first place.
Case in point:
"Follow Your Leader", a stencil depicting Adolf Hitler blowing his brains out with the title caption featuring prominently.
This stencil first appeared on the Berlin Wall during the 80's and has been sprayed on walls all over the world around the punk and skate scene...
I am not claiming ownership, I just like to play with pretty colors and textures as is usually the norm in my art.
My version is standard Rastafari colors of green, yellow, and red, with green being the left and gun, yellow Hitler in the middle with his brains blowing out red to the right, all fading in a bilinear gradient.
Copyright is not at issue here.
Zazzle is trying to ban this particular piece saying they or their shareholders don't like it without saying why
"Design contains content that is not suitable for printing on Zazzle and/or it's brand partners"
Is all I got from them so far.
Now, obviously Zazzle can do whatever the fuck they want. It's their company, I merely provide the ideas, they provide the thread, ink, and marketplace.
Convenient, yes, but I still don't like being told what I can or can't say/print, particularly when I am taking a stand against racism.
Soon I will have my own press and be able to make some of these designs myself on my own t-shirts...till then I may be migrating over to Threadless or one of the other online fashion design houses. It's a wait and see for now.
`J.
Comments (11)
that is disturbing. and you wiggle around with which that i mean.
@promisesunshine - i thought it was pretty straightforward...disturbing yes, but wigglesome? what do you mean?
well, it's all disturbing i guess. censorship is never a good thing. and you should be able to create exactly as you want. but... that graphic (excuse me if that isn't the right term) is just as disturbing as the rest. my opinion. colored greatly by how i feel about suicide. anyway. backing off. nice to see you hanging out.
@promisesunshine - I have some issues about suicide as well...my own father, lots of friends, etc....
but when it comes to Hitler, I think he made a wise decision and my only wish for Christmas is the rest of those haters follow in their glorious leaders illustrious footsteps.
no need to back off or anything...i wouldn't put controversial stuff out if i wasn't interested in peoples reactions.
oh, aaron, i'm so sorry.
but i'd rather see another end to the hating.
hmmm I understand the point of the graphic and I can understand why a company wouldn't make it. I guess you'd just have to shop it with other companies.
hey babe. here's what i would think might be a reason but i'm looking at it from totally the victims' view, possibly. maybe the people who suffered those atrocious crimes under hitler and his little boot-stompin' club - well, just,,,maybe it might hurt their feelings, you know? it's like, i wouldn't want a picture of the klan on my t-shirt with their sheets in flames, burning them up. it just brings up all those negative connotations/memories and bad taste in people's mouths (the victims, i mean). maybe. is all i can think of about the company not running with it.
@be_the_rain - I pulled it myself anyway, mostly after i came to the same conclusion you did, more or less- but i would love to see a t-shirt of the kkk on fire themselves- hmmm....a good idea is a good idea.
i know you can't fight hate with hate, but sometimes fire is the best solution...you know how them Russians are about their fields.
@aaronmcnees - i know only because you explained it to me. otherwise, i was really burning everything, wasn't i? now i'm ...there's a quiet man in my life. it's a totally new experience and has me feeling like what i suppose being on heroin feels like. it's nice, it's scorpio ~ it's way slowed down.
And so again we see that the only real value left in our culture is that you should never ever make anyone else uncomfortable. Even if they probably should be uncomfortable. Or on fire, as the case may be.
as for your comments on my spot (my @ reply doesn't work): the heat doesn't work (haven't tried the a/c). We had an electrician come out and give an opinion and he said the a/c had been harvested but the other a/c unit is still there and all the parts are still there. Neither of us can remember if the second (older) unit was still functional when I bought the place. They were in the process of stealing the brand new water heater when we evicted them. (Had it half disconnected)
We've been working on it every day since we got rid of them. Any time you want to blow a few hours, you're welcome to help.