Last week, Congress released more than 23,000 pages of documents from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s estate to the public.
Since then, the bombshell release has garnered commentary from the Trump administration, thousands of internet users, Saturday Night Live and, now, merch sellers on Etsy.
In recent years, a certain contingent of ultra-niche online merch sellers (and, most likely, drop shippers) have decided that any notable event is fodder for potential T-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers.
In recent months alone, sellers have profited from merchandise designed to covertly signal anti-Trump messaging; merch promoting “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administration’s migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades; and merch based on a series of New Jersey drone sightings that spawned conspiracy theories across the internet.
Just days after the new Epstein documents were released, merch sellers on sites including Etsy and Amazon have already turned the disclosures into NSFW statements.
Etsy and Amazon flooded with merch inspired by the Epstein emails
Of all the information included in the documents revealed by Congress (including one message in which Epstein claimed that Trump “knew about the girls”), most merch sellers are focusing on a specific email exchange in March 2018 that’s become a major subject of internet scrutiny.
In the exchange, Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, asks Epstein how he’s doing. When Epstein responds that he’s with Steve Bannon—Trump’s former White House chief of staff—Mark Epstein follows up with: “Ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba?”
Given that “Bubba” is a well-known nickname for former President Bill Clinton, netizens have begun speculating that the comment might refer to a sex act between Trump and Clinton. The comment even got some national airtime on Saturday as part of SNL’s cold open on November 15.
(Both Trump and Clinton have denied any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse or sex-trafficking operations, and neither appears to have been explicitly implicated in wrongdoing in the emails.)
Mark Epstein has since gone on record to multiple publications claiming that he was just joking—but that’s not stopping merch sellers from capitalizing on the theory.
A look into the NSFW merch designs
Out of the dozens of new Etsy and Amazon listings that have popped up since the files were released, one of the most common themes is a riff on the phrase “big, beautiful bill,” which Trump used to describe a major tax and spending law that he signed in July.
In these merch items, however, the “bill” in question is Clinton.
The items, many of which are not safe for work and potentially offensive, feature President Trump and former President Clinton along with a variety of suggestive phrases. (See here, here, here, and here for examples, but click at your own risk.)
While most of the merch is fairly predictable, a few sellers have opted for more creative designs—including one image of Trump and Clinton inspired by the iconic film Brokeback Mountain.
Etsy and Amazon did not immediately respond to Fast Company’s request for comment on whether it’s aware of an uptick in merch in this vein, and whether the merch fits within their terms for seller designs.
