Kurt Cobain Suicide Note Shirts Pulled from Etsy and eBay

When I was a senior in high school, I read Jim Carroll's "8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain" out loud to my English class. Sure, part of me thought it would make me look cool, but the part of me that isn't an a-hole just wanted to share this beautiful, haunting piece of writing with my peers.

Since I was a kid, I've been drawn to Cobain, moved by his music, and really saddened by his death.

Lines from this poem still stick with me:

Genius is not a generous thing
In return it charges more interest than any
amount of royalties can cover And it resents fame
With bitter vengeance"

(Read the full text here. Watch Carroll perform "8 Fragments" at an MTV Spoken Word Unplugged below.)

So, being a Nirvana fan and being interested in and drawn to Kurt Cobain, there is something that feels really wrong to me about a T-shirt printed with his suicide note.

The shirt first appeared online on Monday as a tank top on Etsy for $14.99. A baseball-T was also available for $25.19 on eBay. However, as of Wednesday, both websites stopped selling the shirt, due to fans voicing their outrage.

A Reddit user first brought the shirts to pubic's attention on the site's WTF forum.

One user wrote:

"Hard to tell Cobain he was being too cynical about the world when years after his death the most personal details of his private life are being turned into mass market commodities."

 

Others added:

"This makes me question the morality of the fashion industry and how far people are willing to go just to make a quick buck."

 

"That takes poor taste and exploitation to a new level."

 

According to Diffuser.fm, 16 people bought the suicide note tops on eBay before they were removed.

What do you think? Were the sites right to stop selling the shirts?

My answer is yes. I think the clothing is in really poor taste. But what do you think?