Nut an actual apology

Posted on May 23, 2013 by snarly

KeepCalm_CarryASpoon-240x300Nutella megafan Sara Rosso is the visionary behind World Nutella Day. An American blogger and social media specialist living in Italy, she became so enamored of the delicious (or so I am told, but since a spoonful of it would kill me, I will take your word for it), nutty, chocolate-y, not-exactly-good-for-you product that in 2007 she created an annual day to celebrate it. Every February 4th, she and her friend Michelle, a fellow expat, host an international celebration, encouraging people to tweet and Facebook their love of Nutella, cook with it, have Nutella parties and Nutella-eating contests and trumpet their unholy passion on their blogs.

You would think Nutella would be happy to make news for something not involving having to settle a false-advertising-claims lawsuit or protest that its really-bad-for-you ingredient isn’t so bad for you so it shouldn’t be taxed by the venomous French. Stai zitto, idiota!

Last week, Nutella’s parent company Ferrero sent a scary cease-and-desist letter to Rosso, who announced on May 16th that she was going to have to take down her NutellaDay.com web site and attendant social media and cancel the big gooey party. Continue reading →

Posted in Corporate Apologies, Non-apologies | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Abercrummy update

Posted on May 20, 2013 by snarly

As of 9am EST, CEO Mike Jeffreys has not apologized for his godawful apology.

But I enjoyed both the responses below and wished to share. Continue reading →

Posted in Bad Apologies, Corporate Apologies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Abercrummy

Posted on May 18, 2013 by snarly

Quick recap: A few days ago, quotes from a 2006 Salon story about the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries, resurfaced in a story about why Abercrombie’s largest women’s size is a 10. Jeffries had said that for his brand, sex appeal is “almost everything.” He continued, “That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.” And that’s very deliberate. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told Salon. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

The poop hit the fan with the velocity of a drunken frat boy’s vomit. (A cool, good-looking frat boy.) Reactions ranged from a plan to give homeless people Abercrombie clothing to an Occupy Abercrombie & Fitch movement in which plus-size people will storm the store’s cool and popular barricades nationwide on May 25. Do you hear the fat people sing, Mike Jeffries?

Finally Abercrombie responded on Facebook. Continue reading →

Posted in Bad Apologies, Best & Worst Apologies, Business Apologies, Corporate Apologies, Fashion Apologies | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Sorry, but maybe your mom wants to put it on the fridge

Posted on May 16, 2013 by snarly

Here’s a 1956 letter from the Museum of Modern Art to Andy Warhol, saying “thanks but no thanks” to his donation of a drawing.

Andy Warhol rejection Letter

“I regret that I must report to you that the Committee decided” not to accept the drawing is a perfectly adequate apology. Explaining that your decision is based on your limited storage space is a little hurtful when, uh, it’s a DRAWING — how much space does it need? I think it would have been better to cut that entire paragraph. When you’re delivering a shiv to the ribs, make it quick.

MoMA should totally have drinks with the 12 publishers who rejected JK Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript.

Warhol-RedCat(282x359)

i can haz regret?

Posted in Artistic apologies | Tagged , | 2 Comments

That man has no panties

Posted on May 16, 2013 by sumac

Earlier this month, an official visit to Washington, D.C. by South Korean president Park Geun-hye was going rather well. Which was gratifying, in light of recent criticisms of Park’s administration, such as the charge that she’d appointed people with “questionable ethical standards” to important posts. Park addressed a joint session of Congress, and had a summit meeting with Obama.

Yes, all seemed hotsy-totsy, and then came the incident with the spokesman and the intern and the nonexistent panties.

Continue reading →

Posted in Bad Apologies, Cultures and Apology, Government Apologies | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

take a big bite outta this apology!

Posted on May 14, 2013 by snarly

Friend of SorryWatch Joe Hobaica, our curator of cake content, received this dandy surprise birthday treat from his lovely wife Mattie. It was not chocolate.

Mr. Hobaica acknowledges that in all probability Scout was not sorry.

poop

Posted in Animals and Apologies, Artistic apologies, Fake apologies, Non-apologies | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Did Helen Mirren apologize?

Posted on May 10, 2013 by sumac

Helen Mirren was playing England’s reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, in “The Audience‘, at the Gielgud Theatre. Outside someone started drumming drumming drumming nonstop drumming deafening drumming. Mirren focused, raised her voice, projected, as did the other actor in the scene, Paul Ritter. DRUMMING DRUMMING DRUMMING.

The audience was “trying to be entranced,” Ben Scotchbrook wrote. Scotchbrook was among audience members who went outside at intermission, found a group of drummers promoting a festival later in the month for gay and transgender people, “As One in the Park,” and asked them to drum elsewhere. Response? DRUM DRUM DRUM DRUM DRUM.

Continue reading →

Posted in Celebrity Apologies | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

I apologize to me

Posted on May 9, 2013 by sumac

A Sydney Morning Herald story excellently begins:

As the P&O cruise ship Aurora neared Circular Quay in [February 2012], a British national sent a message to a mysterious Sydney man named David Smith, saying, “About one hour.”

More than an hour later on the morning of February 17 last year, “Mr Smith” replied to say: “Any news?” and “You OK?”.

But Ronald Fletcher was not OK.

Continue reading →

Posted in Animals and Apologies, Bad Apologies, True Crime Apologies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

O, LEGO!

Posted on May 8, 2013 by snarly

A week or so ago, awesome dad Josh Stearns wanted to buy some LEGO-branded, construction-themed stickers for his son. But Stearns (who lives in Northampton, MA, so I should probably use the honorific “hippie-dad Stearns”) noted with dismay on his Tumblr that one of the workers — “the only one wearing ‘cool’ sunglasses” — has “HEY, BABE!” written next to him. This guy has a slight smile on his face and one arm raised, presumably in preparation for making a repetitive jerking gesture after the LEGO lady he’s yelling at tells him where he can put his little acrylonitrile butadiene styrene drill.  Continue reading →

Posted in Bad Apologies, Corporate Apologies | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Not at all detestable in any way

Posted on May 6, 2013 by snarly

Man, all you people on teh Facebook demanding we tackle neocon hottiepants Niall Ferguson’s apology for calling dead economist Maynard Keynes a big fag who didn’t care about the future because he had no kids! (I paraphrase.) FINE. Here we go.

Continue reading →

Posted in Academic apologies | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments