A little before noon yesterday, Buzzfeed India senior editor Nirali Shah took a screenshot of a Facebook ad for Paintcollar, a site where artists can upload their designs and get them printed on various merchandise, and posted it on Twitter. The subject of the ad was the t-shirt shown below.
I don't know who has told South Asian boys they're allowed to use this word? You're brown, settle down. pic.twitter.com/iHtT4NjbxV
— Nirali Shah (@nirali_ss) September 29, 2016
The shirt was designed by Being Indian, a YouTube channel that also makes merchandise. It is a play on words from Hindi song “Dum Dum Deega Deega Mausam” and is inspired by a comedy sketch put on by the channel.
The same shirt is also for sale on Being Indian’s site and other locations.
In response, Paintcollar posted a poem thanking her for the publicity.
Out of the mouths of babes, apparently.
It also tagged Being Indian’s Sahil Khattar.
Tech in Asia has reached out to Being Indian and will update upon a reply.
Paintcollar’s response was later taken down. In a call, Paintcollar co-founder and CEO Amogh Vaishampayan claimed that the response was originally sent out by a social media intern.
“None of us cofounders had any idea,” he tells Tech in Asia. Amogh – along with Akash Arun, Shantanu Mahajan, and Deepak Yadav – founded Mumbai-based Paintcollar in September 2014 with the intention of catering to millennials, who they saw as consuming art through merchandise.
However, Akash liked the tweet. Whoops.
Welp.
Tech in Asia has reached out to Akash and will update upon a response.
This afternoon, Paintcollar tweeted another response to Nirali with a picture of a t-shirt.
@HAPhazard85 @nirali_ss @sheikhimaan we deliver. pic.twitter.com/TpBSJ1ZEBh
— Paintcollar (@Paintcollar) September 29, 2016
“What we do is we’re an open marketplace for artists and creative people to upload designs and merchandise – we put it up for sale,” Amogh said about the Being Indian design. “Being an open marketplace, we give our artists freedom of speech.”
“By and large, if you look at the response you’re getting on Instagram and everything, people are taking it in the right way, in the humorous way,” he adds.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself
Photo credit: bolina / 123RF.
It’s clear that the n-word is racist – it’s deeply rooted in a history of slavery and contains nuances only fully understood by a specific sect of the population. Here’s what startups can take away from this back-and-forth.
Thinking through things one posts on social media is a must – you can’t always blame boo-boos on anonymous interns (especially when you favorited the offending tweet).
It’s also important to remember that people have the power to screenshot anything that comes across their screens. You can’t delete anything from the internet.
You can’t delete anything from the internet.
Pondering that epic clapback you have planned before throwing it up on your social media account could help a lot (especially if it’s not nearly as epic as you originally think).
Many startups also have their sights set on expansion, which involves, among other things, a willingness to learn about the sensitivities of other cultures. It’s particularly ironic when a video channel that claims to celebrate the diversity of Indian culture decides to use a loaded word just because it rhymes.
Paintcollar, which ships across India and was funded in June, has also expressed the desire to sell outside of the country.
Meghna Rao contributed to this article.
This post Racist shirts, Twitter beef, and how not to handle a PR crisis appeared first on Tech in Asia.
from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/paintcollar-being-indian-facebook-ad-offensive
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