Disappointed but Most Definitely Not Surprised

by M.P. Cremer

A few years ago, I designed a handful of “pro-agriculture” T-shirts and listed them on a site called Redbubble. Recently, I found out my account was suspended from Redbubble because it “broke community guidelines.” 

Let’s chat about this.

Redbubble is a popular site for artists of all kinds to get their artwork out there. Designs are uploaded by artists and can be printed on canvases, coffee cups, T-shirts and stickers. They can even be printed on shower curtains – the possibilities are endless. 

The real beauty of selling designs on Redbubble, in my opinion, is artists are out zero dollars. They simply just upload their designs, set their prices and wait for orders to roll in. All items are made to order by Redbubble, and they take out the cost of goods after a buyer purchases the artist’s products. 

In my opinion, this model is a win-win. 

As an artist, individuals are out absolutely nothing to sell their products. As a buyer, one can see a design they like and have it printed on different styles of T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, keychains, phone cases, etc. 

However, in my case, it’s no longer a win-win – it’s a total loss.

All but one of my designs was centered around promoting agriculture. Some were simple with just my Activists vs. Agriculture logo on them, while others promoted farming and ranching. 

My two favorite designs read “Support your local sodbuster” with a drawing of a vintage plow and “Without agriculture you’d be naked and hungry” with a drawing of a cotton bowl. 

Sure, the latter toes the line of being inappropriate, but it’s why I love it. To this point, there are far more inappropriate designs being sold on Redbubble every day by random artists, but I digress.

I haven’t uploaded an ag-related design – or any design for that matter– in a while. However, I had purchases for multiple items from my Redbubble store in the past year with my Activists vs. Agriculture logo on them as well as my Walking P Productions logo, which is my photography business. 

I recently tried to login to my Redbubble account to order another Walking P Productions T-shirt to fit over my pregnant belly. 

Sadly, however, I was met with a notice my account was suspended because I “broke community guidelines” with my designs as someone deemed them “offensive.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it was probably one of my best-selling designs – a muscle tank that says CARNIVORE.

I’m going to go out on another limb here and say it was probably some anti-ag activist who found my Instagram account and followed the link to my Redbubble store to report me.

I’m not shocked by this, really, it was just a matter of time. 

I’ve been flagged on social media before for posting “offensive” content. One report, in particular, was a photo of a junior 4-H member kissing her show lamb on the nose. I’m not sure how this is offensive, but the anti-ags have done this many-a-time in the past. 

I just didn’t think it would happen on a random Tuesday in May of 2023, in a time when I hadn’t promoted my agriculture merchandise in over a year. But, it did.

I’m not bitter about this fluke. I was taken aback when I first saw the suspension notification, but at this point it’s kind of like “Are you really surprised?”

Anti-ags will go to the ends of the earth to bury anything positive about agriculture. They’ll protest in front of innocent businesses, report social media posts and trash talk children who are excited about agriculture, planting seeds in their head they’re “bad people.” 

Anti-ags will flat out lie about agriculture to push their agenda, so why would it shock me some fragile, cowardly, propaganda pushing anti-ag would get my account suspended from an independent designer website?