Internet shocked by display book choice in online furniture listing
This stylist made some choices... and they weren't all good.
Accidents happen and, unfortunately, they are not all created equal.
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Sometimes the repercussions and consequences of a certain accident can be seriously detrimental and harmful.
An example of that would be a car accident. Or putting a book on display that could be triggering to a large group of people.
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Wayfair is an overseas home retailer. This means that in order to display their furniture online they obviously need to provide pictures of their products.
While many online retailers choose to just display the product in question against a plain background or on a model with no frills and extras surrounding it, others might choose to create a cute setup.
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That's the case with Wayfair, which provides plain, no backdrop pictures of their products, but they also spice it up occasionally by placing it in a room set up with other decor to help buyers imagine what the piece would look like in their home.
A cute vase filled with flowers here, a throw pillow there, and some books with the most questionable titles we've ever seen...
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That's exactly what happened when Twitter user @spspssps came across a very odd furniture listing on the Wayfair website.
This unsuspecting coffee table got a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons when she shared the picture on her Twitter.
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In her Tweet she wrote: "Shopping for a coffee table and what Wayfair?" and included the following picture:
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"What?" is right!
In the picture, you can clearly see a white and grey book sitting on top of the table and the title clearly reads: 'White Supremacy'.
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While many were quite upset by the choice made to include the book in the product pictures, there were a few that made some important points thanks to their eagle-eyed vision.
The not-so-subliminal messaging of coffee table books on Wayfair is… a choice.
— Trenton M. Haltom, PhD (@TMHaltom) September 9, 2021
Why yes, it does appear to say “white supremacy” backwards. 😳https://t.co/lqBl7Lrr1f
it’s clearly digitized, too, in contrast to the books shown with other products from that brand (August Grove). 😳 Someone thought the photo needed a book and chose to make this.
— Roco Foucault (@rocofoucault) September 9, 2021
Was this a graphic designer's exit interview?
— hippiegrrl (@hippiegrrl) September 9, 2021
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A few people did try to clarify that the book in question is 'State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the United States', a 2011 study on racial inequality edited by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Moon-Kie Jung, and João Helion Costa Vargas.
As it turns out, the book is not about racism in the way that one would think, but it still wasn't the best option for this particular use.
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Since the book debacle, the site has removed some of the pictures and also issued a statement to address the situation:
Like other retailers of this product, as soon as we became aware of the issue, we took immediate action to remove the product image from the site and are investigating the matter with the supplier.
We love a statement moment but there is also a time and a place for everything and this time, this was not the place.
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Main image courtesy of Wayfair.com