News/Commentary

Controversial designer says Target pulling ‘Pride’ products ‘a very dangerous precedent to set’

June 3, 2023 | | Print Article

While conservatives are plenty pleased by the ongoing Target boycott, one particular Satanist evidently isn’t so thrilled.

That “Satanist” is named Erik Carnell, the designer of Abprallen, a British fashion brand that “creates apparel & accessories for underdogs, misfits, queers, and outcasts,” according to its Twitter profile.

As previously reported, a boycott of Target over its “Pride” merchandise convinced the retailer to drop certain items, including those of Carnell’s Abprallen brand.

“Abprallen previously had two products on Target’s website, a messenger bag that says ‘Too queer for here’ and a sweatshirt that says ‘Cure transphobia.’ … As of Friday, Abprallen products were no longer listed on the site,” Fox News noted.

Speaking with Reuters this week, Carnell, who’s a “transgender male,” was disturbed by how Target purported to support the gay community but then turned its back on them the moment things got hot in the kitchen.

“It’s a very dangerous precedent to set, that if people just get riled up enough about the products that you’re selling, you can completely distance yourself from the LGBT community, when and if it’s convenient,” Carnell said.

“If you’re going to take a stance and say that you care about the LGBT community, you need to stand by that regardless,” the designer added.

There’s just one problem. Carnell’s current rhetoric seems to contradict what was said earlier, right after the products were dropped.

“About a week and a half ago, Carnell said, [she] started receiving hundreds of hateful messages including death threats, some of them incorrectly saying the collection was being marketed to children, as some people lashed out at Target over its Pride offerings,” CNN reported on May 27th.

“By Wednesday, Target had pulled Abprallen items from its US stores and online market. … Carnell’s immediate reaction was relief,” CNN added.

“​​The amount of backlash that I have gotten has been overwhelming. I just hope that this is the beginning of the end of the messages and the onslaught that I’m getting,” Carnell told the outlet.

In fairness, transgender did admit at the time that the removal of the items would ultimately be a bad thing: “When this has all died down, I’m going to be incredibly disappointed that such a huge opportunity was taken away from me.”

However, Carnell stressed at the time that he understood where Target was coming from.

“I don’t know what, other than pulling it, could be done to help protect the retail employees. Their safety absolutely has to be the top priority,” the British designer said.

All this comes as Target’s stock continues to plummet — so much so that the company’s stock has been downgraded.

“Target Corp.’s stock, which is on its longest losing streak in 23 years, was downgraded to neutral from overweight Thursday by JPMorgan, which cited ‘too many concerns rising’ in relation to the retail giant,” according to MarketWatch.

It’s not clear though how much of the stock’s decline is a result of the ongoing boycott. One so-called “market analyst” told Newsweek that the drop in stock price may have also resulted from a really shoddy May 17th earnings report.

All this said, what exactly does Satanism have to do with “Pride.” Well, according to Carnell, the so-called “Satan” is a fan of the LGBT community.

“Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan, he is merely used as a symbol of passion, pride, and liberty. He means to you what you need him to mean. So for me, Satan is hope, compassion, equality, and love. So, naturally, Satan respects pronouns,” Carnell explained in a recent Instagram post. “He loves all LGBT+ people. I went with a variation of Baphomet for this design, a deity who themself is a mixture of genders, beings, ideas, and existences. They reject binary stereotypes and expectations. Perfect.”

View the post below:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Abprallen (@abprallenuk)

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Vivek Saxena
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