Fans and activists have been taking to the streets and social media to protest pop megastar Britney Spears’ conservatorship, which is overseen by her father and seen by many critics as a means of controlling Spears’ finances unfairly and preventing her from a normal life.
The #FreeBritney campaign gained steam after the release of the Hulu documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” which was produced by the New York Times Company and featured people close to Spears voicing their concern over her situation.
Now part of the larger zeitgeist, people are looking to cash in on the “Free Britney” movement by creating merchandise. One British man ordered 10,000 T-shirts in an attempt to make a profit, but evidently didn’t pay close enough attention to how Spears spells her first name.
He’s now left with thousands of T-shirts that read #FreeBrittany” instead. If only he’d have gone with print on demand…
Karl Baxter, creator of the shirts, reportedly had good(ish) intentions, pledging to donate 20% of the proceeds from sales of the shirts to the #FreeBritney campaign.
“After hearing and reading all about Britney’s fight to end her conservatorship, I’d been interested in doing something to help fight the cause by appealing to my young customers,” he said, according to EuroNews. “I’m now stuck with loads of stock that is unlikely to go anywhere. So I’m appealing to any fans of the movement to invest in one.”
That’s a tall order. Given the fact that Baxter was donating a relatively small portion of the proceeds to the actual cause, it’s unlikely that 10,000 people find it in their hearts to bail him out of his T-shirt stock.
If he doesn’t manage to sell them all (which is likely), he says he will donate them to developing countries. Either that or he can hold onto them just in case there’s ever a trending hashtag campaign in support of releasing the Brittany region from the clutches of France.
