Immediately following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the cofounder of Sticker Mule, a direct-to-consumer custom sticker company that advertises heavily on social media, sent a marketing email to customers from the company’s accounts titled “Trump 2024” and telling them that “I support Trump” and “Btw, this week, get 1 shirt for $4 (normally $19). I suggest buying one that shows you support Trump.” It also sent a marketing text message to some customers titled “Sticker Mule: Statement on Trump assassination attempt.”
The company posted the same message without the t-shirt discount note to its Instagram alongside a photo of Trump raising his fist immediately after being shot in the ear. “Donald Trump was shot,” the message reads in part. “I don’t care what your political views are but the hate for Trump and his supporters has gone too far … awesome people, all over the world, love Trump. Don’t limit your friendships and diminish your happiness by indulging in political hate.”
The posts about Trump, which were signed by Sticker Mule cofounder Anthony Constantino, have unsurprisingly gotten the company immense backlash from customers who do not support Trump and who did not expect to be marketed t-shirts from a custom sticker company in the aftermath of an assassination attempt.
On Reddit and Twitter, many bands, small organizations, and small businesses have vowed to never use the company again. The post also, of course, galvanized customers who support Trump and the broader conservative internet.
The episode is an example of companies feeling like they not only must market against every possible world event, including an assassination attempt, but also an example of companies feeling like they must have a publicly stated political opinion about every major world event. It is also, obviously, an attempt to market to Trump supporters and to a conservative internet that has spun up things such as Black Rifle Coffee, a right-wing coffee company, and has supported a host of influencers who have performatively gotten themselves “canceled” then enjoyed wide support on the right-wing internet.
On Reddit, posts calling Sticker Mule’s email gross have thousands of upvotes and hundreds of comments on r/sticker, r/punk, r/facepalm, r/LeopardsAteMyFace, r/Persecutionfetish, r/conservativeterrorism, r/screenprinting, and r/sadcringe. Conversations about the post have also popped up on subreddits for the Defcon hacker conference and Burning Man. “This is such self victimization and trying to capitalize on this event to advertise,” the post on r/sadcringe reads. There are numerous threads about alternatives to Sticker Mule.
Constantino has also been beefing with customers on Twitter for days since the assassination attempt. The company has lost roughly 20,000 Instagram followers since its post. Sticker Mule did not respond to a request for comment.
