The Hitler teapot (also called the Hitler tea kettle, officially the Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle) was a stainless steel kettle sold in 2013 by the American retailer and department store chain JCPenney.[1][2] It attracted attention on social media due to its perceived resemblance to Adolf Hitler.[3][4]
The kettle was designed by the American architect and designer Michael Graves as part of a collection of products for JCPenney. It first attracted attention in May 2013 when a photograph of a billboard advertising the product on Interstate 405 in Culver City, California, was posted online, and Internet users, especially of the social news aggregator Reddit, noted the kettle's perceived resemblance to Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. The kettle's design incorporated a black handle and lid top that many users interpreted to look like Hitler's parted hairstyle and toothbrush moustache, as well as a spout that was thought to resemble a right arm raised in a Nazi salute.[5][6] In a poll of KPCC readers, roughly 31 percent thought it resembled the dictator, while roughly 25 percent thought it did not.[5]
Due to the media attention, the kettle sold out at JCPenney's stores, with some later reappearing on eBay, priced as high as $199, much higher than the original retail price of $40.[3] The company also removed the billboard that sparked the initial heightened interest in the product,[5][6][7] and said that any resemblance of the kettle to Hitler was unintentional, stating in a tweet: "If we'd designed the kettle to look like something, we would've gone [with a] snowman".[8] The Hitler teapot has been cited as an example of pareidolia, a phenomenon in which individuals perceive meaningful images or patterns in otherwise random formations.[4][7] Writing in the Haaretz, Gavriel Rosenfeld characterised the popularity of the Hitler teapot as being part of a wider phenomenon of “Hitlerization” and Hitler memes.[9]
Presented content of the Wikipedia article was extracted in 2022-05-06 based on https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=70382818