The big t-shirt news of this particular Monday isn’t the Threadless $3 off for 3 days sale. Neither is it the new shirts available at that site, cool though some of them are (e.g., The Grand Escape).
And it isn’t the 10% off for two weeks sale at T-Shirt Hell. But it is the reason for that sale. The site “where all the bad shirts go” is closing down. I first saw the story at TechCrunch, where Mike Arrington quotes TSH’s Sunshine Megatron’s goodbye.
I started this company in June of 2001, nearly 8 years ago, with the intention of producing the best satirical, the most controversial, the funniest t-shirts on the internet. Generally speaking, I feel I’ve accomplished that and am satisfied with what we’ve put out. I made a shitload of dough along the way. I’ve done cocaine off the better body parts of supermodels. I’ve even raped and killed a mountain panda in the hills of Shaanxi. But these perks are besides the point.
I just don’t feel like dealing with idiots anymore. I’ll give you an example of the kind of misguided morons we deal with on a regular basis at T-Shirt Hell. We released a new shirt a couple weeks ago that says “It’s not gay if you beat them up afterwards”… we’ve been besieged with emails from angry people complaining about the “fact” that the shirt is hate speech or that we’re promoting gay bashing and should take it down immediately.
The Obama image is from TSH, by the way. I hadn’t heard of TSH before today. So I am reminded of the people who, when told about Elvis’ death, remarked that it was a good career move.
So long, T-Shirt Hell, we knew ye better than we wanted to.
And Sunshine Megatron, don’t let the door hit you in the back on the way out. Jerk.