30 Times People Were So Surprised By A Shirt They Saw In Public, They Just Had To Document It (New Pics)

Back in the early 2010s, fashion writers were hoping slogan t-shirts are on their way out. Back then, we were dealing with a lot of “cute but deadly” and “sexy princess” type of statements on people’s chests. And let’s not forget about all the wine mom and beer dad classics, as well as the pathetic remnants of hustle culture in the shape of a coffee lover’s t-shirt.

However, proclaiming your stance on beverages and other urgent topics is far from over. In fact, in recent years, slogan t-shirts have been elevated to runway-worthy fashion. Dior came out with “We should all be feminists” while Givenchy slapped “I feel love” together with a 200-dollar price tag on a simple white tee and people couldn’t get enough.

Slogans even found their place on red carpets. Celebrities often use them to voice their stance on various issues. Many celebs wore “Time’s Up” shirts, pins, and bags in the beginning of the Me Too movement in support of a non-profit organization that helps victims of sexual harassment. Many of them also wear outfits with explicit statements encouraging people to vote. So, slogans are not always useless.

Slogan t-shirts actually have quite honorable beginnings. Wearing them largely began in the US, in the mid-twentieth century when various social movements were on the rise. To this day, slogan t-shirts are a part of social activism. It is a very straightforward way to openly disclose and stand by your beliefs. It allows people to identify themselves and announce their association or affinity for a certain group or movement.

Victoria Clarke, a lecturer in the University of Bristol, once did that and, inadvertently, found out the power that a slogan shirt can have on the people around you. She came to one of her lectures wearing a t-shirt that said “Some people are gay. Get over it!” She assumed that most would share her “amused appreciation of the playful slogan,” while students who did not agree would simply keep it to themselves. 

However, many students reacted to it quite negatively, thinking she was implying that they were homophobic. They complained about Clarke to their representatives and described her in the end-of-the-year evaluation as “despicable,” “biased,” “selfish,” “offensive,” and “sexist.” Some of them stated that she wore the t-shirt “a lot” even though she only wore it twice and assumed she is immature and seeking to stand out. She later published a study analyzing the response and came to a conclusion that while people are homotolerant, society is still very heteronormative. She never wore that shirt again.