It was a cold and lonely night in 2019, which is weird because we’re in sunny Los Angeles and have tons of friends. Our social media team at the time—a wondrous, wandering wizardess and goodr co-founder Keri Blunt—created a post that had an unfortunate combination of product name, image, and copy making a drug reference. It was the perfect internet (sh*t)storm.
The product was Pineapple Painkillers sunglasses.
We created these rose-tinted, low light sunglasses to celebrate pineapple juice's ability to fight pain and reduce swelling.
The image on the social media post in question was the sunnies on a mirror next to an unidentified powder (it was crushed-up mints, okay?!?), with a prop pineapple conspicuously absent from the shot.
The copy in the post referenced Vicodin as a post-run recovery option.
While Pineapple Painkillers references an alcoholic beverage, the mirror and powder looked like drugs to social media users, sparking a backlash. People hated it, they reeeeally hated it. And some of them hated us for it.
Ultimately, the post came down, and we apologized. Some folks don’t want us to forget that flock-up, though, and they’re not afraid to tell us about it in social media comments years after it happened.
We sold a ton of Pineapple Painkillers sunglasses as a result of the extra traffic boost, and still sell these pairs today to own our mistakes and celebrate our failures.
One of our biggest flock-ups to date is immortalized in this pair, and although this isn’t the origin story behind Pineapple Painkillers, it’s the origin story we’re telling ourselves—and it’s the origin story the world needs to hear.
Pineapple Painkillers, anyone?
NON POLARIZED
THE SUNNIES THAT STARTED IT ALL
THE STORY BEHIND THE SHADES
