Xhale City MAGA Hat Controversy
Overview
Xhale City MAGA Hat Controversy refers to an incident that occurred at the Xhale City vape shop in Tucker, Georgia, in which an employee loudly demands a customer leave the premises for wearing apparel in support of United States President Donald Trump.
Background
On December 28th, 2018, Facebook[3] user Ian Ferguson uploaded footage in which an employee at the vape shop Xhale in Georgia is filmed screaming at a man wearing a Make America Great Again hat and a pro-Trump shirt to leave the store (shown below). That day, YouTuber Cilantro reuploaded the video titled "Xhale City Vape Shop employee has epic meltdown over Trump Shirt," which gained over 673,000 views and 5,300 comments within 72 hours.
Developments
That day, Redditor Fatkungfuu submitted the video to /r/The_Donald,[1] where it gathered more than 1,700 points (93% upvoted) and 200 comments over the next three days. On December 29th, 2018, YouTuber The Thinkery uploaded a review of the viral video (shown below).
Xhale City's Response
Also on December 28th, 2018, the Xhale City Facebook page posted an apology for the incident, revealing that the employee had been fired and that they had reached out to the customer (shown below).
InfoWars Interview
On December 30th, Ferguson was interviewed by Alex Jones on the online show Infowars (shown below).
Yelp Review Bombing
In the coming days, the store's Yelp[2] page was flooded with negative reviews, receiving a score of 2.5 stars. Additionally, pictures of Donald Trump and various memes referencing the incident were uploaded to the Xhale City Yelp photo gallery.
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