American Apparel has apologized after posting a photo of the space shuttle Challenger disaster on its Tumblr account, mistaking it for an image of fireworks.
The Challenger exploded just 73 seconds into its flight on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven people aboard. It was a moment the space exploration industry would never forget.
[seealso slug="tumblr-tips-power-users"]
The Tumblr post was tagged "#Smoke" and "#Clouds." It has since been deleted, but screenshots taken by Tumblr users are still available.
The post immediately attracted negative attention from online commenters.
@PaulRReyes @americanapparel @slarkpope yeeeeaaahhhhhh, that's not clouds.... That's people dying.— Anne Stull (@AnneStull) July 3, 2014
@americanapparel POOR TASTE is an understatement... you have lost me and my family as customers.... PERIOD— muggs45 (@19muggs45) July 3, 2014
Pls tell @americanapparel that this isn't a "cool tumblr photo" of clouds. h/t @slarkpope http://t.co/uwoSR9MwwK pic.twitter.com/SzIsisnz8y— kenyatta cheese (@kenyatta) July 3, 2014
@americanapparel You have someone that works for you that has that bad a grasp of freaking history.— Brad (@Brad_D80) July 4, 2014
The company issued an apology on Twitter on Thursday, blaming the mistake on a young international employee.
"The image was re-blogged in error by one of our international social media employees who was born after the tragedy and was unaware of the event," American Apparel posted. "We sincerely regret the insensitivity of that selection and the post has been deleted."
With our sincerest apologies: pic.twitter.com/BOF43jScV0— American Apparel (@americanapparel) July 3, 2014
American Apparel has recently garnered attention for voting to replace chairman and CEO Dov Charney. Among the board's grievances are the allegations that Charney refused to participate in mandatory sexual harassment training and used severance packages to quiet former employees.
Charney has been repeatedly accused of sexual harassment by employees in recent years; he was also accused of choking a store manager and was known to walk around the office in only his underwear, among other offenses, but the board has chosen to defend him in the past. Charney is fighting "vigorously" to remain in control of his company, and transferred his entire stake and voting rights in the company to a hedge fund, sources said earlier this week.