Today in intellectual property right violations:

You have failed me once too often Facebook advertising algorithm:

What's the point of collecting all this personal information about
people if you can't even bombard them with targeted advertising?

There's just...there's just too
much going on with these. Stop.

Despite my longstanding interest in things that are, for marketing purposes, lumped into the board category of geek culture, I don't fill my home with branded sci-fi tchotchkes, so where this thing got the idea that I wanted Star Wars bedsheets is beyond me. Much less bootleg Star Wars bedsheets labeled "His" and "Hers," and much, much less, Star Wars bedsheets that are also somehow American-flag themed. And it's that weird black and white version. Which, what even is that? An internet search gives a few different meanings for it, but none seem right.

What, too soon?

The placement of the lightsaber looks like the "thin blue line" flags that are suddenly everywhere. They're meant to show support for law enforcement, except that they're are usually waved by people leaping to the defense of police who have committed a murder, so it's a little hard not to see this particular flag without associating it with fascism, racism, and police brutality. Of course the lightsaber is red, which can stand for firefighters, but Darth Vader is, you know, traditionally not great in fire-related crises, so I'm thinking that's probably not it.

Whatever the black and white flags originally meant, I now see them almost exclusively on black pickup trucks next to NRA stickers and that dumb punisher logo insecure white men plaster all over their trucks. So I'm going to guess that the flag is some MAGA goon horseshit. My abject apologies if I'm misreading it. But I'm not.

Geez, we get it: you love 'america, guns, and reckless child
endangerment (pretty sure that's a kid in the back). Give it a rest.

The Empire blows up planets and
their soldiers are called Stormtroopers.
What about this is unclear?

But we're still left with the question: what does any of this have to do with Darth Vader and pillow cases that reinforce heteronormative relationships? Nothing. Obviously. Unless you factor in that mysterious force that surrounds, binds, and penetrates every aspect of 21st century American life: synergy. You see, the company that created the ad, letschillbro.com--no really, that's the name. Anyway, the good people of letschillbro.com identified an apparently as yet untapped market: Star Wars fans who fundamentally misread the film series' anti-fascism message. 

Sure, it was 115º in Portland yesterday, but
we can't ask people to go without Funco Pops.

And that's what manufacturers of unlicensed (although, I guess licensed too) nonsense do. They take ordinary objects, like say bedsheets, slap some branding on them, like say Star Wars, and sell them for five or six times what the sweatshops charged. Because we're dumb and our out of control, hyper-capitalist, and environmentally disastrous economy will be the literal ruin of the world. But we've easily got five, maybe six years before that happens, so let's get back to figuring out why someone thinks Darth Vader votes Republican.

I suppose Darth Vader does use violence to enforce the will of Palpatine, an oligarch who used a manufactured crisis to create a culture of fear which he then used to seize power. So in a way, Darth Vader is exactly what the American right thinks law enforcement should be.

The Star Wars saga is, at its heart, a tragic tale of an
old white guy who just wanted unlimited power.

letschillbro.com also offers a throw
pillow with a Darth Vader line Lucas 
actually took from George W. Bush.

But in another, more accurate way, Star Wars is a series about Darth Vader being a thug who, at the end, comes to realize that he'd been played all along and only redeems himself by throwing that fascist shitheel down his own throne room's convenient, en-suite bottomless shaft. Huh? What's that? Yes, I've seen the prequels. And yes, George Lucas may not be the best screenwriter, or director, and he once hilariously claimed that his movie Red Tails was the first action film to feature an all Black cast. But whatever you think of the quality of his filmmaking, the Star Wars movies were and are an unsubtle critique of American imperialism. 

So how is there enough Venn diagram overlap between Trump-loving gun humpers* and Star Wars fans to justify bedding that throws them together in some kind of ideologically confused nerd smoothie? And if you manage explain that, try explaining this:

Just to be clear, I'm not worried about Disney's intellectual property rights.
They're a massive corporate juggernaut with money and lawyers. They'll be fine.
I just refuse to believe that Grogu's first words will be "Blue Lives Matter."

*What? I stand by the phrase "Trump-loving gun humpers."