{"id":12243,"date":"2019-07-02T02:09:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T09:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=12243"},"modified":"2019-07-02T02:10:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T09:10:11","slug":"people-are-not-happy-about-kamala-harris-new-campaign-t-shirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/07\/02\/people-are-not-happy-about-kamala-harris-new-campaign-t-shirt\/","title":{"rendered":"People Are Not Happy About Kamala Harris&#8217; New Campaign T-shirt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.promomarketing.com\/thumb\/?src=\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/1969\/12\/Brendan_staff_200x300.jpg&amp;w=51&amp;h=51&amp;c=true\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.promomarketing.com\/author\/bmenapace\/\">Brendan<\/a> (promo marketing magazine)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>July 1, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a very fine line between a clever and timely commemoration of a noteworthy moment and going too far. In the case of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, her latest T-shirt release is teetering on that line after her campaign team created a T-shirt that references a rebuttal directed toward Joe Biden during the first round of debates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the debate, the topic of Biden&#8217;s past relationship with pro-segregation legislators came up. Harris told Biden that she was one of the students that was bused to newly-integrated public schools in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,&#8221; Harris said. &#8220;And that little girl was me. So I will tell you on that, on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Harris camp wasted no time pumping out merchandise for Harris&#8217; mic-drop moment with &#8220;That Little Girl Was Me&#8221; T-shirts, depicting a young Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BzPYfu6F6ma\/embed\/captioned\/?cr=1&amp;v=12&amp;wp=500&amp;rd=https%3A%2F%2Fmagazine.promomarketing.com&amp;rp=%2Farticle%2Fkamala-harris-new-t-shirt-irritated-some-potential-voters%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A5707.259999820963%7D\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" height=\"917\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem, for many observers, was that Harris&#8217; point loses some of its genuineness and impact when it&#8217;s turned into something people can buy or a tool to raise money. The moment feels more artificial or manufactured, and Harris has so far received a flood of disappointed or angry comments on Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Hmmmm man I was like so about her at the debate tonight and everything felt and seemed so authentic, and then I come on here and she already has a T-shirt ready to sell,&#8221; one Instagram user wrote. &#8220;This just made me mad uncomfortable. Like I legit just second guessed wanting to vote for her after seeing this lol.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Kamala\u2014commercializing what I (and probably many others) believed to be a beautifully emotional\/off the cuff comment to Joe Biden so soon afterwards makes your thoughtful words seem hollow and calculated,&#8221; another wrote. &#8220;Please don&#8217;t give anyone reason to believe you&#8217;re disingenuous!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It does seem a little disingenuous. Obviously,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.promomarketing.com\/article\/how-one-distributor-handles-playoff-season-for-just-about-every-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">things can happen fast in the promotional apparel world<\/a>, and as we&#8217;ve seen with micromoment merchandise, it&#8217;s possible to pump out apparel and other products quickly and in large quantities. But this wasn&#8217;t a sports championship or a viral tweet\u2014it was what appeared to be an emotional response to an important political issue. Commercializing it so quickly makes it feel like a calculated move, undermining the moment by giving the impression that it was a planned talking point rather than a genuine moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Had Harris waited a few days to give off the impression that her team hadn&#8217;t already planned on using this remark as a way to sell shirts, it would&#8217;ve appeared much more organic. It could&#8217;ve been a &#8220;Wow, what a great line. Let&#8217;s run with that!&#8221; moment, rather than a &#8220;Make sure you say this so people understand why we&#8217;re selling a shirt with a childhood photo of you&#8221; moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a fine line to walk, and the Harris team didn&#8217;t quite stick the dismount here. Is it the most egregious mistake a presidential candidate has ever made? Hardly. But, in a race like this where it&#8217;s still anyone&#8217;s game, this could be costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.promomarketing.com\/thumb\/?src=\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/1969\/12\/Brendan_staff_200x300.jpg&amp;w=51&amp;h=51&amp;c=true\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"mailto:bmenapace@napco.com\">E<\/a><strong>Brendan Menapace<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.promomarketing.com\/author\/bmenapace\/\">Author&#8217;s page<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brendan Menapace is the senior digital editor for Promo Marketing. While writing and editing stories come naturally to him, writing his own bio does not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Brendan (promo marketing magazine) July 1, 2019 There is a very fine line between a clever and timely commemoration of a noteworthy moment and going too far. In the case of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, her latest T-shirt release is teetering on that line after her campaign team created&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/07\/02\/people-are-not-happy-about-kamala-harris-new-campaign-t-shirt\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12246,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12243\/revisions\/12246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}