The apparent misstep had ”Valentine’s Day“ trending on Twitter, with the missing merch presumed to be filled imminently for the Feb. 14 holiday

Call it the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

A storm of emotional outbursts erupted Tuesday on Twitter after Jim Cramer, the king of the emotive outburst and host of CNBC’s “Mad Money with Jim Cramer,” posted a photo of empty store shelves with a caption simply reading “suboptimal.”

Cramer was presumably offering economic commentary on the potential plight of consumers amid the combined effects of supply-chain shortages and the Omicron variant’s COVID-19 surge.

But what Cramer apparently failed to see were pink strips below the featured shelves, prompting many to take the CNBC host to the presumptive cleaners over what they saw as a short-sighted attempt — with the photo revealing nothing more than a store that had made room for Valentine’s Day inventory.

The apparent misstep had “Valentine’s Day” trending on Twitter. It also recalled a gaffe that cast Cramer in a similar light last year, after he called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Crazy Nancy” to her face during an interview on his show.

That move resulted in a quick on-air apology. Tuesday’s post simply resulted in a flood of eye-roll sentiment.

“There was an aisle in our local Kroger that looked like this, too,” noted one tweet reply. “….An hour before they filled it with Valentine’s Day merch.”

There was an aisle in our local Kroger that looked like this, too…an hour before the filled it with Valentine's Day merch. pic.twitter.com/xw9i4l7rlJ

See more reaction below (but be warned; some of it is NSFW).

looks like the shelves have been cleared of Christmas product & ready for Valentines-themed merchandise -see the hearts on the shelve fronts? that's for Valentine's day But why don't you give us the name and location of the store so we can confirm with Manager.

Yeah, sorry they are clearing the shelves to put up Valentine’s Day items. Maybe if you weren’t in the middle of the fucking aisle taking pictures, they could get to work.

Jim I’m ashamed that you’ve ignored actual data released this week about record holiday sales and on-time deliveries to post what is clearly Valentines merch turnover. can we trust anything that you say about the economy? Because this is clear misinformation @jimcramer

love to spread misinformation to 1.7 million followers

Calling bullshit on that! As you should know, seasonal product aisles are temporarily cleared out to make room for new regular priced stock. pic.twitter.com/5GtQyjpC7x

This is so very clearly a seasonal turnover. Have you ever worked?

Valentines Day is more than 6 weeks away. You’ll find someone.

As you well know by now, those are Valentine's Day shelves, ready to be stocked. People will like you more, and will maybe have a teensy more faith in humanity, if you just admit you messed up here and issue a correction. But I'm guessing you won't.

What is truly suboptimal is posting this pic and not realizing everyone will see the pretty pink Valentines Day shelf runners and realize the store is simply prepping to stock for that. 🙄

Photograph by Jeff Vespa for TheWrap

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