All Time Low is facing backlash for selling hospital-style bracelets as merch in support of their new album, Tell Me I’m Alive.
The bracelet is part of the pop-punk band’s pre-order merch bundle for their upcoming album. The bundle is currently selling for $12.99 on All Time Low’s web store.
However, it’s unclear how long the bracelets will remain for sale considering the backlash the product has received over the last few days.
“All Time Low selling hospital style bracelets as merch, especially because of the mental health issues often associated with the genre, is one of the most insidious things I’ve seen in a long time,” one person tweeted.
“To the band that wrote Therapy & Missing You, the stories and letters of kids/ teens that struggled w/ mental health that confided in your music, why would you make hospital bracelets as merch? How did that go out the window just because we’re adults?” another disappointed fan wrote on Twitter, referencing two of the band’s songs that address mental health.
“All Time Low having hospital bracelets as band merch is a new form of low that I can’t even express with words,” another person tweeted.
“You’ve got to be one sick motherf—er to think mock hospital bracelets as merch is anything other than an absolutely heinous idea,” someone else wrote.
A creator on TikTok also called the merch “insidious.”
“There is something insidious as f— about any sort of commercialization or stylization of a f—ing hospital band. Especially when you consider the demographics of this genre and how many people in this genre have mental health issues and have been hospitalized themselves … Why do you want your fans wearing hospital bracelets? Why would anyone want to wear a hospital bracelet as an accessory?” she asked.
Warning: Video contains strong language
However, some are calling the controversy a “reach.”
“As someone with health issues, who has been in and out of hospitals for years upon years … I, personally, do not think this is anywhere close to offensive. What I think IS offensive is that people are getting angry about this rather than the allegations… but I digress,” one person wrote on Twitter.
The “allegations” refer to sexual assault accusations that came out against All Time Low on social media in 2021.
The band addressed the allegations in an October 2021 statement, calling them “completely and utterly false” at the time.
All Time Low announced their new album Jan. 13 alongside a video depicting lead singer Alex Gaskarth injured in an ambulance while other band members play paramedics.
