Friday

10 May 2013

I was going to start with, “at the risk of being unkind,” but the truth is I don’t feel like being especially kind in this circumstance. So I’ll go ahead and say what my inner bitch is thinking.

This guy--


Michael Jefferies, Abercrombie & Fitch Head Asshat

--is about 8 kinds of ugly. Only 2 of those have much to do with his physical appearance; truthfully, he is not a pretty man. Not even plain. I wouldn't flinch if I saw him, but I also wouldn't make note of his presence. His kind of ugly is more like a scorching on his soul, thick black scars that are so smudged that he can’t really see past them.

My opinion, of course. My very unkind yet unapologetic opinion.


Print too small to read? The head asshat of Abercrombie & Fitch, when asked why he refuses to make clothes for larger women, spewed forth the following excremental ideal:

In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. We go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong in our clothes, and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that.


Here's the thing. I speak Asshat, and I can translate this for the intelligent people.

"I was an ugly kid, the one who always looked like I'd chased a parked car a few times too many. On top of that, no one liked me, and as hard as I tried, the cool kids in school would never so much as give me a glance. They wouldn't play with me when I was a little kid, the girls wouldn't date me in high school, and the boys tormented me endlessly. So now I'm doing everything I can to be one of those cool kids by selling them over-priced slut wear, and everyone will love me. I'm pretty now, right? Tell me I'm pretty."

In the past, I've defended the company's right to produce catalogs of near pornographic quality, because keeping those out of the hands of kids is the responsibility of parents. And I'll almost defend his right to say what he said. Everyone has the right to his or her own opinion.

But the content of what someone says, regardless of their right to say it, defines quite a bit of their character. And I'm laying out bare the rude and unkind part of my character when I say that this guy is a piece of shit. Were I part of his target market, I would never step foot into one of those stores again.

Sometime in the next week or so I expect he'll say something else, something along the lines of "I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

Yeah, you did, dude. You so totally meant it. Now go graze on a milkbone or two, and cry yourself to sleep knowing you shouldn't even step foot into one of your own stores.

Ugh, yeah, sorry about that. But it's the unattractive and hypocritical side of me, I have to let it out every now and then so I don't explode.




11 comments:

Angel, Kirby and Max said...

I am with you here! He did mean it and cannot take it back. Many of us were not cool or popular or pretty, and we have survived with out his stores!

gizzylaw said...

Maybe that is why his stores STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN! We won't walk by one because of the smell. I kid you not...we will go blocks out of our way not to walk in front of an AF store. Now that I know that the stench comes from his dead soul I will stay further away.

Unknown said...

He is not the first to say something like this. I have heard designers say that they won't design for fat women (yes I said it ... And yes, I was one ... And, in some circles, still am). I even saw a hairstylist interviewed on the news a while back. He said he wouldn't take a fat woman as a client.
I agree with your take on this Thump.
Good thing I am not into A+ F!
R

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

He might have been not bad looking before all the plastic surgery, now he just looks strange. But he has a real ugly personality. Imagine working for him--enough to give you nightmares.

Roses said...

Sometime in the next week or so I expect he'll say something else, something along the lines of "I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

I will look for this, and then I will laugh and laugh...

the other karen said...

I wish I were an A+F customer so I could tell him to go f- himself and the clothes we wore in on.

Karma's a bitch. The fatties he refuses to design clothes for can lose weight, but he's stuck with that plastic surgery disaster of a face.

Gemini and Ichiro said...

The really great thing is that the fatosphere is really growing with proud fat women, really pushing back against the idea that they aren't healthy or lazy or unfit or anything else and being willing to speak out about such stigmatization. I have a lot of hope that what they are doing will start a trend so that people of all sizes can work towards their best health without worrying so much about an extra few pounds or dieting until they die. And as far as beauty, well maybe he should never have destroyed that Dorian Gray portrait he had in the attic...

Lsamsa said...

Whatever he physically looks like...doesn't matter.
He is one incredibly ugly person.
Don't count on that superficial attitude to see you through as you grow older dude.

Mighty Kitty said...

Comment not made due to lack of printable wording!I have the words but the language would be too much for even sailors to read! LOL

Mighty Kitty said...

Comment deleted by this writer due to lack of clean language with which to word it!