A few days ago, the all-mighty and powerful Twitter algorithm decided that I wanted to see a clip of a confrontation between a Forever 21 manager and an aspiring local social media “influencer” named “Jon The Don” at Forever 21 in Penn Square Mall.
Because I’m home today taking care of a sick and sneezy 4-year-old and have nothing better to do than write weird ledes and headlines, I thought I’d subject you to it as well.
Check this out:
Listen. I know in today’s tribal day and age we’re supposed to take sides on anything and everything, but is it wrong that I want everyone in this video to slip on an Auntie Anne’s pretzel?
Seriously, if you were to compose a March Madness-style bracket of the most annoying people on this planet, there’s a good chance that Authoritarian Retail Managers and aspiring Social Media Influencer Divas who film anything and everything would be Top 4 seeds. Granted, archaic bloggers who then sardonically cover the confrontations for cheap clicks and page views would also make the field, but I’m not the one on trial here.
As a service to our age-advanced reading audience, I decided to do a bit more research into the situation.
I guess Jon The Don was shopping for clothes back in November at Forever 21 and filming it for all his fans. This act of online civil disobedience violated Forever 21 policy, so the staff overreacted and called mall security on him and his social media film crew. Forever 21’s head Karen then arrived on the scene to help de-escalate the situation which, naturally, escalated the situation.
Here’s a longer video of the incident that Jon The Don shared on TikTok. It’s been viewed over 2-million times, and is a great example of everyone handling a stupid situation poorly…
After the video made the rounds, the social media mob turned on Forever 21. The company then canned the employees involved, and sent this heartfelt copypasta apology to all complainers.
I do have some other questions like “Why does Forever 21 not let people shoot video in their stores that would help promote their stores?”, "What exactly is Forever 21?” and “Why Does the Twitter algorithm hate me?” If you have answers to those questions, please leave a comment.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
