In 2008 a satirical German TV magazine made an episode about a Palestinian entrepreneur in the outrage industry. He produced and sold flags of various countries to be burned in protests. He also offered otherwise not available specialties of such countries so one could boycott those. The star spangled banner was usually his best selling product but at the time of the show Danish flags were in high demand by the flag burners to show outrage over some cartoons. As said the show was meant as pure satire.
But as happens quite often satire was beaten by live. Some recent anti-Islamic movie by some crazy people led to a boom in a real version of the outrage industry:
When the mobilization against the U.S. film began, “I knew the tills would start ringing”, said the manager at Panaflex printers, housed in a dilapidated building in Rawalpindi, the twin city of Islamabad and headquarters of the military.
“Whenever we have these demonstrations, I make 10 times as much money as normal,” he told AFP in a tiny room that stank of ink, as two huge rollers spat out Stars and Stripes.
Sold for between 120 and 1,500 rupees ($1.25 to $16) depending on size and quality, the flags have been snapped up for demonstrations against the film in recent weeks, and Haider watched in delight as his products went up in smoke day after day on the TV news.
…
In Shah's shop 1,500 rupees will get you a three-square-metre Stars and Stripes in cloth, with a guarantee it will catch light with no problems — a key concern for protesters, particularly with TV cameras around.
As the flags are pretty expensive and only at certain times high in demand various political groups have organized their own just-in-time production:
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, blacklisted by the United Nations and the United States as a front for terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, says it has a “special team” dedicated to making US and Israeli flags for demonstrations.
“They end up costing us 50-60 rupees each,” said Asif Khurshid, one of the group's officials in Islamabad.
Satire or real, funny or not, I'd rather have an outrage industrial complex than a military one.
h/t T.W.