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My 10 Favorite Shirts, and why I don't own any of them
06/13/06
by Shaw

A person's T-shirts say a lot about them, and not always intended. There are probably people out there who have regular 9-5 jobs and have to dress up for work--when they put on a T-shirt, it's just to work out or do home improvement, so they really don't care too much about what it says. People like this usually only have a few T-shirts anyway, like their college shirt and maybe a few 5K shirts from races they've done, all of which are weatherworn. I play squash with a guy who wears the same shirt every single week, and it's a weatherbeaten free shirt from Southwest Airlines--not a style choice, just convenience. It's always at the top of the drawer.

For me, however, I basically only wear T-shirts. Putting on a polo shirt is dressing up for me. Not that I am purposefully anti-establishment: I own suits and a tux and nice shoes, but these things have no value as a graduate student in math. Hence, the decision to choose a T-shirt in the morning is a style choice similar to a high-powered attorney deciding whether to wear his Armani or his Zegna suit.

For that reason I am always looking at other people's T-shirts. This sometimes causes confusion when I am trying to read the small lettering written across a woman's chest, but I feel like women can't complain about intensive breast scrutiny when they are wearing a shirt that asks for human interaction. In any case, I have collected observations on some of my favorites over the years. Of course, I don't own any of them, as you'll see.

Note: click on any of these shirts if you want to buy one.

10. Fukengruven

These shirts were a fad in the early 90's, when Volkswagen had those inexplicable "Fahrvergnugen" commercials. What the hell is fahrvergnugen? This ridiculous commercial spawned a bunch of equally stupid shirt logos that contained puns on fahrvergnugen. I was always amazed that people in my middle school got away with wearing these shirts given the obvious reference to the f-word. Given my love of puns and, in particular, puns on words that don't really even exist, I love this shirt. I don't own one of these because wearing a fukengruven shirt is equivalent to dropping out of high school.

9. One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor

There is something about the person who wears this shirt that says, "I went to New Orleans for the tits but all I got was this stupid T-shirt." I have never seen someone wearing this shirt who wasn't a mulleted drunk redneck with a bitch on each arm and a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve. There are people who drink so much they fall over, and there are people who drink so much they fall over and then get a T-shirt that loudly proclaims their propensity for stupid drunkenness. I don't own one of these because I haven't earned it... I think the most tequila shots I have ever had in one night was 3. Some day.

8. Stop Or You'll Go Blind

This shirt falls into two distinct classes that I appreciate: first of all, it references a bizarre urban myth (e.g. that masturbation causes blindness), and secondly, it assumes hostility toward the person who actually reads it. Not that assuming that someone masturbates is in general a hostile statement, but the tone is accusatory. I don't own one because I wouldn't want to have to explain all the humor on this shirt to my grandmother. Oh, and because it's a really stupid shirt.

7. Ithaca is Gorges

Again, puns. I love this shirt because of the pun, but not because I agree with the implied statement. I visited Cornell and it made me want to kill myself. I had friends that went to Ithaca College in Ithaca as well, and it was a nice campus, but let's be honest, the city of Ithaca blows. It is not by any means gorgeous... the surrounding area, however, is pretty and contains lots of--you guessed it--gorges. The only problem with this shirt is that I see them all over the place now. My friend Bob went to Ithaca and now lives in Seattle... and parks right next to someone else with an Ithaca is Gorges bumper sticker. To me this is a sign that the shirt is too popular to wear now.

6. Sports Jerseys

There is an essential irony to people that wear sports jerseys just walking around on the street. The jersey was made specifically for use in athletic physical contests, to get dirty and do battle. Yet to the average sports fan, the cost of a jersey is a month's salary. Hence the jersey is kept in better condition than any of the owner's other clothes. In fact whoever bought the above jersey would probably sooner ruin his favorite suit than take a dive with his Marino jersey on.

5. No Fear / Gotcha

What the hell? What were these things? When I was in 4th grade, everybody was wearing No Fear and Gotcha shirts. I consider them the same even though they are (I think) actually two different companies. No Fear was one of those things that started out as just a slogan, and then gradually got bastardized as they licensed the title out to KMart and the dollar store to make their own designs, and so you ended up with this dog in a wrestling singlet spouting a(n awesome) pun. As for Gotcha, I am still not really sure what it is. I used to see those things all the time but when I tried to find it online to put this picture up, this was the only picture of the original logo that I could find. It looks like there was a video game, a paintball game, a dinner plate set, and t-shirts... these guys really knew how to diversify. Either that or their copyright got violated and they didn't do anything about it. I don't own either of these shirts because I wasn't cool in 5th grade.

4. GAP Logo shirts

Someone once argued to me that I shouldn't wear T-shirts of my favorite bands because when I do that I am just an advertising tool. I argued that I don't mind being a walking advertisement for a band I like--I want them to make money and keep making music, which is the real product that I appreciate them providing. Here's how you become an advertising tool: wear a shirt whose sole content is an advertisement for the company that made the shirt. "I wear Gap shirts because I want you to buy a Gap shirt so they can make more Gap shirts for other people to buy so we can all be wearing Gap shirts." As a person that actually shops at the Gap occasionally, I have never seen an actual Gap employee wearing one of these shirts... no, it's just tools that wear them. Note: this goes for other shirt companies too; Gap is the classic from the 90's, but you see the FCUK (French Connection UK), Deisel, and A|X (Armani Exchange) shirts all over the place too.

3. Coed Naked Shirts

Those Coed Naked shirts were the BOMB! Yeah! lqsd;lknfk;jernfvjkldfsnjv vckavk

cdscksdnvcksljdsd

dsfkljweofijpweojfj8394787(8

kill me

2. Busted Tees

I was hanging out with my dad last week and he was talking about how he wanted to buy a shirt from Busted Tees, so he was showing it to me. It occurred to me that most of the jokes on these shirts were probably not accessible to people of my parents' generation, so I took the liberty of seeing if he got the jokes on some of the shirts... I showed him these two and explained Old School and myspace to him:

Then he saw this one:

Rather than speaking the acronym out loud, I asked, "Do you know what a MILF is?" He did not. I deferred to Wikipedia for the explanation. It occurred to me that I did not want to pursue this conversation any further with my father. Anyway, this is by far my favorite Busted Tee:

I don't own any of these because, similar to the No Fear/Gotcha phenomena, I am not cool now, so such a shirt would not look good on me.

1. The Best T-shirt Ever

The first time I ever saw this shirt I was at a karaoke bar in Alexandria. It was sported by an obviously stupid drunk raving fool. This shirt exemplifies what I mentioned above, with total hostility toward the reader and, in particular, assumption of stupidity. The irony of this idiot calling [all] other people idiots really tweaked something something in me-- it still makes me laugh really hard every time I see it. I can't own this shirt, obviously, because I could never pull off the irony as well as that inbred fool on that fateful day at Rock It Grill.

Got a favorite shirt? Let us know.

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