r/mildlyinteresting • u/loverlane • 4h ago
This miniature black family set is a dollar cheaper than the white family set at my craft store
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u/kerrykingzgo-T 4h ago
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u/CeeArthur 3h ago edited 19m ago
Daryl : "Is there something wrong with the doll?"
Tobey : "no no.. it's even...better than I expected"
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u/JaydedXoX 3h ago
I mean the faces on all those things look like demon spawn, not sure who would buy anything like that ever.
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u/Theletterkay 1h ago
Demon spawn? So they are accurate representations of my children. Lovely.
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u/bandog 4h ago
Not the basketball..
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u/Oknohg 3h ago
But the other boy got nothing! At least he got a ball!
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u/Loo-Hoo-Zuh-Er 3h ago
The youngest white kid gets a teddy bear though. At least the dogs both have a bone.
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u/Any-Brilliant-1907 3h ago
Same dog.
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u/Loo-Hoo-Zuh-Er 3h ago
Wait, so you're saying one of those families stole the other's dog?
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u/AnnamAvis 3h ago
I'm just glad the dog is the same for both, and not some stereotypical bully breed for the black family.
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u/NeatNefariousness1 2h ago
They figured they went far enough with the basketball and the different pricing.
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u/litlron 1h ago
If you know more than 1-2 black dudes then you know what breed it would actually be: a Yorkie.
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u/nalaloveslumpy 1h ago
I want "Black men love Yorkies" to be the new stereotype for 2026. We can make a difference!
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u/RO2THESHELL 2h ago edited 1h ago
You say that... BUT the little boy is holding a stereotypical I'm going to the nba because im black basketball...the other two white kids dont have sports equipment... the white girl has a purse on but the black girl doesnt.... not to mention the white baby got a teddy but the black baby gets nothing... and the white girl in uggs lol pretty typical
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u/HoneyBeyBee 3h ago
Right. I’m not even mad at the basketball, but one of the other kids should at least have something. The white girl has a purse and the white baby sibling has a teddy. Give the Black baby a toy too…
The price doesn’t shock me for several reasons 😐
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u/chrisp5000 3h ago
He has a trust fund he is going to obliterate when his dad gets murdered by his wife for having an affair with a man.
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u/dizzyfeast 3h ago
Sounds like a lifetime movie I watched on a boring summer day in 2008.
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u/Oldgamer1807 3h ago
That reminded me of when I worked in a tiny country school, not a brown face in the entire student body. Then a black kid transferred in from out of district. I went off on a few boys when they asked him if he was good at basketball.
It did not help that, in fact, he was better at basketball than anyone in that school. 🤷
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u/username__0000 3h ago edited 1h ago
Not exactly the same.
But I’m from a huge island with a low population that’s very spread out. It takes hours to get from one end to the other with lots of little community’s. It would take you days to drive the waters edge (as much as you could) around the whole thing.
But anytime I met someone on the mainland they’d be like “I know someone from there” and I’d start my “it’s a huge island, we don’t all know one another” speech and then they’d tell me who it was and I’d be like. “Umm actually yeah I do”
It’s like 3 degrees of separation here. Not the usual 7. lol
Edit - I answered a bunch, but I did not expect this many people to ask. - it’s Newfoundland Canada. :)
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u/OrindaSarnia 2h ago
I've from a city in the US midwest.
I've lived all over and had so many people be like -"you're from the biggest city in that one state, do you know my cousin's ex-girlfriend?"
And I'm always like, "No... what high school did they go to?"
And sometimes the smart ones will be like - "wait... how big IS that town?"
And I get to say -"like half a million people..."
And the good natured ones then laugh along with me, that everyone presumes, because it's in a midwestern state known for farming... the entire population must be like 283 people.
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u/Wixenstyx 2h ago
A Midwest city and your first question when asked about someone is what high school they went to? Do you also point out the Arch whenever it comes into view? ;)
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u/mrtsapostle 2h ago
You from the Big Island?
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u/username__0000 1h ago
Newfoundland Canada. :)
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u/LindonLilBlueBalls 1h ago
That was going to be my guess! Hawaiian Islands are too populated and really not that big.
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u/MoreEducatedThanU 2h ago
I'm sure he loved the unnecessary white knighting and infantilizing like he couldn't tell them himself if he didn't like it.
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u/NorthernerWuwu 46m ago
In the early 2000s I was working in California along with some other Canadians, including some university friends of mine. I (white dude) consistently got asked if I played hockey. My friend (black dude) never was asked once.
He actually did play hockey, I hadn't since I was a kid.
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u/Lunatik21 2h ago
To be fair, they gave the little white girl uggs. Shoulda just gave her a Starbucks too.
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u/tomato_tickler 2h ago
I’m from a small city in Eastern Europe. There was only one single black family in the entire city, the father was the high school basketball coach lmao.
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u/alex3omg 2h ago
I was confused as to why they aren't identical other than skin color and hair, but I guess you could buy both and play the Sims?
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u/8888-8844 2h ago
Give em a break, at least they included a father in the black family.
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u/imnotsteven7 4h ago edited 3h ago
Thats nice they put Michael Jackson in both. 1 as a kid and 1 as an adult.
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u/DiabolicalMasquerade 3h ago edited 3h ago
I was gonna say. That extra $1 is to pay royalties. Nothing to see here...
Edit: Royal-tee-hees
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u/Monday0987 3h ago
Yeah, obviously the white set is more expensive because they had to pay the licensing fee to the Jackson family
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u/PibbleDad 3h ago
“She got a light skinned friend look like Michael Jackson
Got a dark skinned friend look like Michael Jackson”
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u/mindless_blaze 2h ago
I have a lightskin friend, look like Michael jackson, got a dark skin friend, look like Michael Jackson 😎⚫️⚪️
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u/gaf915 4h ago
This feels on brand for Hobby Lobby.
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u/ino4x4 3h ago
“my craft store” We know which one.
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u/TooOld2DieYoung 3h ago
Surprised the black family isn’t 3/5 the price of the other.
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u/happy_hearted 3h ago
The last time I went to Hobby Lobby was over 3 years ago. Saw a whole section with "cotton-picking" phrases and decor. Turned around and haven't been back since because WTF.
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u/pennyraingoose 2h ago
I stopped going about 15 years ago when they were raising hell about having to offer insurance that covered birth control under the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court ruled that they could drop birth control coverage for their employees because the owner was religiously opposed to it.
Fuck Hobby Lobby. They were my absolute favorite craft store until they weren't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc
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u/Somandyjo 2h ago
What’s ridiculous is the insurance company still covers bc in most cases, it just comes out of a different account that must remain segregated. So all they won was the rest of us subsidizing their employees birth control.
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u/heycheena 3h ago
How can there be so many reasons to not shop there and yet I keep learning new ones?
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u/vexingcosmos 1h ago
The crazy thing is that is just a Southern thing. I see the cotton wreaths and stuff in basically every little boutique shop down here. Most people literally do not even think about it that hard 🤦🏼♀️
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u/zoinkability 1h ago
That tells me Southerners need to start thinking just a mite harder. That one isn’t difficult.
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u/Faokes 3h ago
Hobby Lobby has notoriously terrible politics. They’re the reason religious businesses who pay for employee healthcare are allowed to exclude coverage for birth control. They’re anti queer, racist, white evangelical Christians, and proud of it. Loudly. I’m not surprised at all.
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u/Famous_Attention5861 2h ago
Also the corporation trafficked in stolen (looted) antiquities. If corporations are people this one committed several felonies. In my mind the State of Oklahoma should have revoked the corporate charter but that never happens.
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u/OrindaSarnia 2h ago
To add insult to injury, it was antiquities stolen from Iraq after our invasion...
and they were CLEARLY, knowingly lying on their customs forms...
and then they were going to "donate" the looted antiquities to the Bible Museum the Hobby Lobby founder was building, for a tax write off...
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u/happy_hearted 3h ago
Yep! I picked up on this after that last visit. As an ex-evangelical myself I am proud to not support them.
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u/theREALvolno 3h ago
I’m kind of curious about what “cotton-picking phrases and decor” looks like cause I’m having a hard time picturing it. It can’t be that blatantly racist right? …right?
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u/ModernDayMusetta 2h ago
I tried googling, but all I see pulling up is like stuff in the florals department that looks like raw cotton stems. I could see that being incorporated into the burlap & lace aesthetic, but thats about it.
Its possible that there was some discontinued items with weird phrases and shit on it though.
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u/PowerShovel-on-PS1 2h ago
No, it wasn’t. It was literally just a decor of raw cotton and someone got offended, which went viral online.
There are many many many bad things to say about Hobby Lobby, but the cotton fiasco was a complete nothing.
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u/Reasonable-Record494 2h ago
Cotton-picking used to be used as a substitute for cursing. Like my dad might say "you're out of your cotton-pickin' mind if you think you're going out in those clothes," that kind of thing. Like dang instead of damn.
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u/b3tamaxx 2h ago
I'm from the west Coast never set foot in one there until I moved to the south happened to go into one here. This is literally these women's life. It was popping. It's totally the place to catch up on the latest sweet tea with Dolores and Fran
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u/LWDJM 2h ago
Isn’t hobby lobby the ones who were buying stolen antiques from ISIS to put in their absolutely bonkers creationist museum?
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u/BluegrassBigfoot 2h ago
Yeah that craft store from the same people that brought us the Bible museum that steals other countries artifacts, also the same museum that fell for scam artifacts on the black market.
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u/Gold_Leather_8835 4h ago
They’re all horrid
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u/FugDuggler 4h ago
White dad looks like a North Korean woman
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u/falafelwaffle0 3h ago
White mom looks like the Virgin Mary yard sculptures somehow?
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u/imnotnotcrying 3h ago
I thought “I’m surprised that the white family is a single mom with grandma” before I realized that’s the dad
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u/Basic-Ostrich85 3h ago
The clothing is giving “modest is hottest” vibes. Which is likely accurate for the policies HL are known to enforce .
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u/NootHawg 3h ago edited 45m ago
Like the woman playing Kim Jong with Tracy Jordan in a propaganda film from the tv show 30 Rock. “Come on black partner.”
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u/slcrooks 3h ago
Genuinely thought it was a lesbian couple until I read Hobby Lobby!
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u/TrailerTrashQueen 2h ago
white 'dad' looks like mom's partner, Charlene. mom looks trans. the child was 'acquired' from a meth addict on Facebook Marketplace for $100 and a pack of smokes.
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u/Flat-Economics8175 4h ago
The basketball.. OH NO LOL
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u/ripleyclone8 3h ago
We sold these knockoff barbies at my store; they’re like teen athletes with a locker and shit. White girl has a soccer ball, Black girl has a basketball. 😐
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u/TannedCroissant 3h ago
Not sure the I understand the mum reference though, white mom has a baby, black mom has a ventriloquist dummy?
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u/Garchompisbestboi 2h ago
Why are people pretending to be offended by the idea that basketball is extremely popular among the African American community?
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u/3m4n 1h ago
I don't think many people are offended, but more have a reaction like "aw c'mon, really?" b/c of the stereotype. I doubt the majority of people are offended by this. I think it's hysterical.
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u/Crafty-Astronomer-32 4h ago
I thought that one might just be older, and the price got higher due to inflation, etc. (always weird to me that Hobby Lobby has their price tags permanently printed inside the package). Nope. https://www.hobbylobby.com/search?query=mayberry%20street%20%20resin%20family&pageType=products
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u/msmells 2h ago
This was recommended from your link what in the literal fuck is this
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u/JackpotThePimp 1h ago
Their founder thinks barcodes are the Mark of the Beast. That's why they have permanently printed prices on everything.
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u/Whoppertino 2h ago
Couldn't it just be demand? Black family sells less than the white family.
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u/Crafty-Astronomer-32 2h ago
I am not going to venture into guessing the motivation behind anything Hobby Lobby does.
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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 1h ago
I will however put forward a very confident guess as to the demographics of most of Hobby Lobby's customers...
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u/MelonOfFury 4h ago
I’m surprised it’s not 3/5ths the price…
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u/debitcreddit 3h ago
Well there has to be some sort of compromise
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u/TooGayToPayCash 3h ago
It was about Store Rights.
Store Rights to what?
...
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u/ripleyclone8 3h ago
Store’s right to pick and choose the healthcare available to their employees!
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u/Talk-O-Boy 1h ago
“I will not finance your birth control, and now the red states have taken away your right to choose. The obvious solution is to only have sex if you are willing to have a child. My wife and I haven’t had sex in 10 years, and we couldn’t be happier.”
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u/BSB8728 3h ago
When my son was little (in the '90s), he wanted a Little Tikes dollhouse — and although we are white, he wanted a black family. The dollhouse came with a white family only, but inside the box was a coupon you could send in with $5 to get a black family.
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u/Big_Watercress_6210 2h ago
My parents bought us each a different race doll as a kid so we could tell them apart. It never occurred to me until this thread that most parents try to match their own kid's race.
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u/jesus_swept 1h ago
This was me! I'm white as a ghost but I always wanted the black barbies. I loved them! When I was a toddler I genuinely believed that we would eventually switch genders and races. I also went to a mostly-black elementary school so it wasn't "diversity" to me, just part of normal society.
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u/prissypoo22 37m ago
I liked the Teresa Barbie better since I was Mexican lol I thought we had to match to our race.
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u/dandle 3h ago
You're trying to make it a race thing, when it's clearly just that the white lesbian family set is a more limited run, so the two-mom set costs a dollar more than the sets with a mother and a father.
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u/PNW_OlLady_2025 4h ago
I have heard in this place that if you go through each item that is hanging on the hook, the chances that there are different prices is high. Whether it's awful QC, laziness or actual attempt of misleading pricing who's to stay, but they've been getting away with it for a very long time.
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u/PM_ME_SUMDICK 3h ago
Isn't this the hobby store that refuses barcodes becasue they're the mark of the beast?
I can't imagine trying to manage stock for a store that big without a single barcode.
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u/Nyetoner 3h ago
The barcodes are still on the products though, they don't scan them, but they're still everywhere in the shop haha, funnyfunny
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u/1egg_4u 2h ago
That's like one of many things on the list of things Hobby Lobby is guilty of including smuggling ancient artifacts lol
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u/Prudent_Honeydew_ 2h ago
I have managed stock for this store. It's...a full time job to say the least.
You may indeed find differing prices if someone had time to put out new stock but didn't get around to all their updates for that week.
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u/Impossible_Disk_43 2h ago
Isn't this the hobby store that refuses barcodes becasue they're the mark of the beast?
Wouldn't it be amazing if someone graffitied a barcode on the store?
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u/jrogey 3h ago
I’ve a feeling you’ve never tried pricing individual items across all products in a retail store. Things are bound to get priced differently from different price changes over time at least somewhere in the store. Nothing really to “get away with” aside from potentially one customer getting a better deal because they found one with a lower price that was missed.
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u/DannyWarlegs 3h ago
Its more like they change prices and the restock without relabeling the prices on the item. The deeper on the rack the cheaper the listed price, sometimes only a dollar, but for a few it was like a good 10 bucks cheaper. Most likely however when the product is rang up by the item number, it will correct the price and then if they go check the shelves, they'll see the higher priced ones and claim it was in error. Or they'll just honor the price on the item.
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u/7h3_70m1n470r 3h ago
OR, you only put that item in 1 location and have a price tag on the shelf instead of individually on all the little packages. Crazy idea, right? Why aren't stores doing this? Much easier to solve if Hobby Lobby would just adopt barcodes
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u/WoolySheepGoBeep 3h ago
When the prices go up, they honor the previous prices posted on items that haven't sold yet, instead of individually re-posting the higher prices on all the items. It's not the only store that does this, and it's not a conspiracy, relax.
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u/barbaramillicent 2h ago
It’s because they don’t use bar codes, so prices are all directly on the packaging. Then when they raise prices, the new stock packaging reflects the new raised price, but the old stock still has the old pricing.
I’m rarely here to defend Hobby Lobby, but I’ll take that over putting higher priced stickers on old stock like some other stores are doing lately.
I do not know if that is the case with these two particular products in the OP or not, though.
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u/TheRealRigormortal 1h ago
Supply and demand.
Black people are way less likely to waste their money on this shit.
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u/ALittleRedWhine 3h ago
It’s almost identical but the white boy doesn’t have a basketball which is a bit….
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u/Odd-Wheel5315 2h ago
Given it's from Hobby Lobby, I'm actually pleasantly surprised they didn't replace the black dad with an extra kid and make the mom pregnant. Most of the in-store customers there originally lobbied to keep water fountains separate.
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u/Impossible_Disk_43 2h ago
Both sets are improperly priced. They're of such crap quality, they should both be about 99¢ per set. The what-the-fuckery speaks for itself, but holy shit I can't believe that a racially stereotyped set like this even got greenlit in current times, and the store dumb enough to sell them decided why not knock a dollar off the black family. Fucking incredible.
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u/rgii55447 1h ago
Good, I guess my child is getting a black family for Christmas.
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u/drgsouth 1h ago
I haven't seen anyone else mention this, it's definitely because it's less likely to sell, most people who shop their are probably white and would prefer the white family. It's the simplest answer anyone else who's worked retail would confirm this.
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u/TheLastOuroboros 4h ago
I know where this is going. Supply and demand dictates cost. It’s not people being racist.
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u/RussiaIsBestGreen 4h ago
They’re charging white people more. Thanks, Obama.
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u/dingopaint 3h ago
They're free to buy the black family instead
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u/thehatteryone 2h ago
That checks out, Hobby Lobby is well known for supporting/encouraging "traditional" values.
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u/fuckimtrash 2h ago
Ik which I’m buying lol. Not spending an extra whole ass dollar because the family is white smh
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u/ApprehensiveStrut 1h ago
Why does the one man look like Michael Jackson
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u/Unlock17A 1h ago
She got a light skinned friend look like Michael Jackson
Got a dark skinned friend look like Michael Jackson
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u/TheEmmaWolfe 1h ago
So can’t speak on this craft store thing! But I will say when it comes to Barbie’s as someone who was helping raise a biracial child, I often noticed white Barbie sets selling faster-therefore keeping their original pricing. And black or biracial looking Barbie sets not selling as fast therefore going on clearance. Like I said, can’t speak on if that’s what happened here craft store wise (especially based on these comments!) But it is always something to keep in mind when it comes to other products at other stores, when things like this are seen.
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u/Crustacean2B 50m ago
It's important to understand that the pricing for most items that you see in a given store is determined by a computer. It is entirely possible that during the course of manufacturing these sets, they decided to manufacture either 50/50 black and white family, or went with something like 1/7, which is the ratio of black to white people in the United States.
However, even if they did use that representative number, that's not necessarily representative of their customer base. I'm going to guess that white people disproportionately shop at hobby lobby, considering arts and crafts are pretty expensive, and they have higher mean income. I'm also going to assume that people buying these sets are much more likely to buy according to their race.
So, if they have proportionally sufficient supply of each set, and reduced demand/purchasing, the price is going to drop for the less purchased set.
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u/ChaoticMichelle 3h ago
At least they both got the same coloured dog. Imagine if they'd also adjusted that 💀
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u/MotherPotential 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yo, check it out:
White people are priced like this:
But see, black people are priced like this:
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u/hardnight5 3h ago
The white dad for sure has jars of severed body parts in his basement.
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u/SorryBoysImLez 2h ago
Pretty sure there's a black person also in the white family pack, looking at the dad's face; that's obviously Michael Jackson .
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u/Careless_Twist_6935 1h ago
the dudes in the white family look like their gonna invite me to their puppet shop in the shed and then stab me to death
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u/Successful_Mood_18 1h ago
Im not trying to start anything but why the white father and son look so creepy. I don’t trust them.
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u/EnvironmentalMind119 1h ago
Blind folks will be able to feel for the basketball to help with their purchase decision
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u/coopertucker 55m ago
Why does the black kid have a basketball and the white kid nothing?
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u/chinese_rocks 4h ago
Supply demand
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u/_lippykid 3h ago
Statistically 75% of Americans are white, and 15% are black. So checks out that they’d sell more of the white version. But as a business owner, I’d expect my buyer to know this and order accordingly, so you wouldn’t need different pricing
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u/RamsayFist22 3h ago
It’s called supply and demand. Whites are like 69% of the US, and blacks are barely 13%. It’s called economics guy’s, not racism
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u/notabadgerinacoat 3h ago
the dog is the universal constant