“Got Hitler?” mug. Screenshot.
Got Hitler? Got Retard? Got Pepe? These mugs were recently pulled from an online Walmart store.
In a listing that no longer appears on Walmart’s site, a company called JM Holdings LLC was selling a mug with the words “got retard?” emblazoned on the side, in the style of those “got milk?” ads. Walmart, like Amazon (which also had a listing for the mug that has since been removed), allows other companies to sell products through its site. This gives the other company a way to reach millions of potential customers, while Walmart.com’s offerings are that much more robust. It is a problem, however, when Walmart appears to be selling mugs with offensive terms on them.
[…]
JM Holdings told Vocativ that the slogans on these mugs are not necessarily intentional, but are generated based on words in the dictionary.
Anyone who believes that, I have some lovely bridges in my garage. You might get away with this excuse with the word retard, but Hitler and Pepe? I don’t think so.
When informed about the Hitler mugs, a spokesperson for Walmart said the company would be reviewing JM Holdings’ entire inventory.
Via Vocativ. Unfortunately, an otherwise good, succinct article is littered with the usage of “alt-right”. This has to stop. When you’re discussing the sale of a “Got Hitler?” mug, it’s safe enough to go with nazis.
the slogans on these mugs are not necessarily intentional, but are generated based on words in the dictionary.
“what a load of utter bullshit” is also generated based on words in the dictionary. At least these fascists are ignorant rather than clever. It’s the clever ones that worry me.
That has to be one of the weakest damn excuses I have ever heard. Because, y’know, it’s all a dictionary algorithm, even with words that aren’t in the dictionary (Pepe), and there’s zero oversight in regard to getting the products made, and put up on a website and all that.
No, it’s just dictionary.
According to the first site which appeared in my hasty google search, “there are about 550,000-700,000 nouns in English, give or take.” Given that the vast majority of ’em won’t be offensive or pejorative, the chances of coming up with a whole bunch of offensive and/or pejorative nouns by getting, as it were, a computer to pick them out of a hat, would appear to be pretty damn slim. The cynic in me has to wonder if there might just be a little bias in the allegedly random generation process.
(Reading the site I linked: I know what antidisestablishmentarianism means, especially since I’m a committed disestablishmentarianist. I’m not sure I want to know what antidisestabhlishmentarianjism is…)
Godwin’s law is dead. You can no longer use Hitler as a hyperbole when the other side uses him as an idol.
Or proper; the noun in the OP is a name. Whilst the name in the OP probably is in most modern general purpose dictionaries, I daresay most names are not.
“Hitler” is in the dictionary?
Collins.
It’s nice they chose such a small dictionary, as they’d otherwise produce nonsense like “Got Apostosis?”.