People Are Outraged Over Fake Abercrombie & Fitch Website

Reuters
Eric Randall 7,770 Views Mar 22, 2012

knock-off website for clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is selling pants using an offensive racial slur, and enough people on social media have been fooled into thinking the site is official that "Abercrombie & Fitch" is a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

An Abercrombie phone operator confirmed to The Atlantic Wire that the site is not affiliated with the company and they suspect it's operating offshore. The site, which is selling "n****r brown pants," has been passed around on Twitter with outrage, but people don't seem to be looking too closely at it. If they did, they'd see that the item description for the offensively-named pants reads:

Abercrombie and Fitch brand has been attracting the young market to the greatest extent.They are in love with these products,for they perfectly suit their looks.The reason of success of A&F is the dedication,which you can see in its stitching,designs,detailing,fabric and color contrasting.It pays attention on each and every detail of the garments and accessories

That's the sort of copy that sounds like it was spit out by an online translator from some non-native English speaker who's probably trying to sell knock-off Abercrombie merchandise overseas. Indeed, Abercrombie is so aware that their stuff is often knocked off, they have a tip line where people can report it on their (actual) web site.

The Abercrombie rep tells us that they heard about the site a few hours ago, and their legal and P.R. teams are currently working to get it taken down and address the problem. So then, the only minor scandal here is that Abercrombie is a trending topic worldwide with countless people under the impression that the company is both really racist (not the first time they've run into that) and really incompetent at writing ad copy, and yet, their Twitter feed remains  silent. In fact, their most recent tweet from two hour ago is almost comically out of touch. "Big party tonight! Makes going to class all week#WorthIt !" You have to move faster than that in the crazy social media world we live in.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at erandall at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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