Thursday afternoon, the Twitter account of designer-shoe pimp Kenneth Cole tweeted out an inane message reminding followers to buy Kenneth Cole shoes by mockingly using the "boots on the ground" metaphor that's been bandied about hither and yon during the ongoing debate in Congress on whether to authorize the use of force against the Assad regime in response to a chemical weapons attack.
The full tweet:
It's not the first time that the Kenneth Cole twitter account has sent out a tasteless advertisement based around recent tragedies, and the response to Thursday's hashtagged missive was much the same: outrage.
But since then, Cole has taken to his Instagram account to shoot a short video defending the tweet. See, he was just trying to "provoke a dialogue."
COLE: I've always used my platform to provoke dialogue about important issues, including HIV/AIDS, war and homelessness. I'm well aware of the risks that come with this approach, and if this encourages further awareness and discussion of critical issues, then all the better.
"Including HIV/AIDS?" Ha, well, I guess I missed Cole's tweet that read, "Our new slingbacks are a good look no matter how many T-cells you have left!"
But seriously, I understand where Cole is coming from. After all, if he hadn't used his Twitter account to "provoke a dialogue" about Syria, who knows what would have happened? We would have had to rely on the president, the secretary of State, both houses of Congress, every major newspaper, all of the cable news channels and thousands of articles on the Internet to provoke that discussion. For Cole, it was obviously a necessary and brave action to take.
At any rate, Cole's tweet definitely has encouraged awareness and discussion of the critical issue of Kenneth Cole being a tactless ass-hat. All the better!
[Hat tip: Margaret Hartmann at Daily Intelligencer]
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]
Before You Go
