News spreads quickly after a shocking event, but scammers trying to make a quick buck can do so even faster.
Within hours of a shooter attempting to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday, countless products emblazoned with an image of a bloodied Trump with his fist raised were on sale on e-commerce platforms. A Temu T-shirt with an image of the rally and the words “TRUMP BULLETPROOF” is on sale for $9.59. (One person died at the rally and two were seriously injured.) On amazon, many of the top-selling men’s novelty T-shirts are nearly identical: some version of an image of Trump at the rally, along with phrases like “FIGHT!” and “NEVER GIVE UP.”
Take sellers on Etsy, the platform that focuses primarily on artisanal goods and independent products. One store on the platform offers clothing with slogans and designs that otherwise seem fairly innocent: sweatshirts with animated smiling ghosts for Halloween and camping-themed clothing. T-shirts promoting gay rights and indigenous identities are also offered on the store. However, in recent days, the store has released several pro-Trump products, including several with images from the rally.
A search for “Trump” on Etsy brings up a slew of listings for other similar products, almost all with photos of product mockups, not actual physical items, suggesting that these are print-on-demand operations endlessly churning out what people are looking for. And right now, some people are apparently looking for bloody, post-assassination T-shirts in questionable taste.
Etsy did not immediately respond to questions about whether products with these images violate rules regarding violent content.
Other sellers are capitalizing on the moment in even more obvious ways: One brand on amazon, creatively called the Trump Fist Bumped Shirt, sells a half-dozen T-shirts, all in the same style, with prices ranging from $13 to $19. amazon also did not respond to questions about whether this type of product was allowed on its marketplace, which allows third-party sellers to sell their merchandise.
Any enterprising seller with two free minutes and a Redbubble account can get in on the action, and so far, the platforms seem willing to take the merchandise. And if there's money involved, you can bet someone will try to make a killing.
