Writing Prompt Challenge #1 If you could ban something what would you ban?

So several years ago I told Golden I was struggling to find something worthy of writing about that I could put on this blog. She got me these books. During a cleaning binge recently I found them and decided to dust them off and actually use them. Who knows  maybe one day I’ll pull up Chat GPT and see what they want me to write about and lord knows I have opinions about that too.

 So today being July 6^th I decided to go with any prompt on the 6^th of the month. I went with the “A 5 Year Question A Day Memory Journal” tho I did flip through the “Complete The Story” book and found a few interesting ones but none I felt like diving into today. That’s for another post I guess.

So today’s prompt is “If you could ban something right now, what would it be?” and I found that interesting cause just yesterday a friend of mine and I were debating a “boycott” that was being called on a site that helps DIYers sell their wares. I won’t share the site but you likely know which one I’m talking about. It’s one of those sites where you can make up a bunch of whatever, create an “online store” and people can buy your goods. They could be tshirts, bags, crochet patterns, jewelry, personalized gifts, vintage items, whatever you want, then you simply set up an online store pretty easily and wait for the orders to come sliding in. Many have made a nice little business through this site, others use it as a side hustle. Either way it’s a good thing. People are allowed to be creative and people who want to support creative people can easily do so. Win .. Win. . .  Right?!  

The problem is that this site has started selling some pretty political wares aimed at a very particular party and supporters of said party are snatching up those trinkets showing there was definite demand for said supply. People are not happy. They think this particular site, shouldn’t have allowed them to have a store to begin with. That the site should take those items down. People were threatening to take down their shops, to move their products elsewhere. Those are likely the same people who say if so and so wins I’m going to move to xxx (fill in blank country”.

Look I get it … is it in bad taste … yeah it is. Are these people just branding themselves by making it, buying it and God forbid wearing it in public. 100% but should they not be allowed to sell the product on this website …. That’s just absurd. I mean this brand made an account just like everyone else, posted their goods just like everyone else and people are willing to pay for said items. I’ve never understood that mentality of if I don’t like it then it shouldn’t be out there. Is it tasteless … well yeah. Does it put a scarlet letter on those that buy the items, yes – frankly let’s make it easier to spot these people, but at the end of the day it’s a legit business with legit merchandise. If they boycott it cause they don’t like it and convince the site to take it down what’s not to say that other stores can’t face the same “backlash.” That being said all this “boycott” did was highlight that these items were in fact for sale.

Politics aside cause I said from day 1 I wasn’t going to get into that here, you can do whatever you want and you can listen to which ever side you want but remember that anyone and everyone can also make an argument against or for whatever and all of it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. So I guess my answer to the prompt … “If you could ban something right now, what would it be?” … would be unnecessary banning of things and the cancel culture plaguing our lives at the moment.

Marcy