Weighing in on Amazon's Fail

[mishaday]

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

This first popped up on my radar from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, where the authorial outrage of delisting triumphed, and only after did my flist explode with the GLBTQ outrage.

So this is about American's uneasiness with GLBTQ issues, but it's also about that same uneasiness with sex in general, and corporate shortsightedness by making that squeamishness policy.

At this point I haven't made a decision about boycotting Amazon. For one, they're local, and for another, they really haven't had a chance to pony up the excuses yet. (I bet they're a fun workplace to be this fine Seattle morning.) The East Coast must be frothing by now, but we've barely woken up yet.

Comments

[raine-wynd.livejournal.com]

I just don't quite understand how it happened, even after all that I've read. I was under the impression that the GLBTQ community working at Amazon was one of the larger factions in the company. Maybe I was mistaken?

[chrismm.livejournal.com]

I started to write a whole long deal, and then decided perhaps I should get to actual work, and so: Yes, this. :D

[solcita.livejournal.com]

A friend who works there says she has seen the reason it happened, it was dumb but absolutely not deliberate. I believe her.

[unmisha.livejournal.com]

They were one of, if not the first company in the region to extend benefits to domestic partners, so yeah.

Some speshul snowflake thought 'let's protect people from adult stuff - no sex toys on the front page!'

And another speshul snowflake thought 'oh, gay themes and sex themes and all those big categories - they're adult!'

And boom, excrement applied to rotary appliance.

[unmisha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, stupidity trumps malice :)

[zaratyst.livejournal.com]

That is pretty much what I just said in another forum, pasted for laziness!

I'm staying out of the amazon fail thing. I am uncomfortable with the witch hunt feel of it. I'll wait and see what unfold, keeping my torch and/or pitchfork handy. It isn't like the bandwagon will move so fast that I can't jump on it later if necessary.