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In high school, I was an unabashed fan of weird and silly tee-shirts. But the relative merits of having people stare at your chest all day are debatable, and after weathering about a million snarky comments from yahoos at the mall and wherever else re: shirts like the one at left (designed by my friend Will) or one of my old favorites, which simply read “I hate Florida!” and had a picture of the state of Florida with an X through it (hey, I grew up there; my views on the subject have mellowed a bit since then) — I decided to get out of the wacky tee-shirt-wearing business. What I discovered was that even now, in this age of can’t-shock-me stoicism and daily exposure to porn spam, something as simple as a tee-shirt can ignite controversy. I never got suspended from school or ejected from the mall, but plenty of people have — and here are a few of them.
Gay? Not on school property
When 16-year-old Heathyre Farnham showed up at her Ithaca, New York high school wearing a shirt that read “Gay? Fine by me,” she was given the option of either changing her shirt or leaving school. She chose the latter. When her mother heard about the kerfluffle, she advised her daughter to contact the media — which she did. The New York Civil Liberties Union got involved, and the school was finally pressured into admitting that Heathyre’s shirt was a form of protected expression, which earned her an apology from the school. More about it here.
You’re never too old to get arrested at the mall
Don Zirkel is an 80-year-old church deacon who stirred up controversy by handing out anti-war pamphlets during a low-key protest at a local mall — while wearing this shirt. Security guards told him to turn the shirt inside-out or leave; he refused; they tried to perform a citizen’s arrest; he resisted. So they forced him into a wheelchair and wheeled him out, whereupon police charged him with criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. (Can you really be charged for resisting arrest by a security guard?!) He and the three elderly ladies that were arrested alongside him will forever be known as “The Food Court Four.” Read more on the New York Times website.
At the airport, not even a picture of a gun allowed
Even a really fake one. Brad Jayakody was nearly arrested by airport security for wearing a Transformers shirt; he tells the story in his own words: “Going out to Dusseldorf for work. Flying British Airways, leaving from terminal 5. Go through security, get pulled to the side. I’m wearing a French Connection Transformers t-shirt. Bloke starts joking with me is that Megatron. Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I’m not allowed to fly. WTF? It’s a 40 foot tall cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. There is no way this shirt is offensive in any way, and what I’m going to use the shirt to pretend I have a gun? Now here’s the stupid part. I was only taking carry on luggage, so my clothes were in my bag, so I said I’d get changed. So I stripped off at security and changed t-shirts, putting the “offensive” t-shirt in my bag. Now I haven’t been a dick so far, I’ve done what they’ve said. No point in arguing with the drones. The supervisor comes over and is now a dick to me, telling me if I put the shirt on I’ll be arrested. I then told him that I wasn’t going to waste time arguing with him and he wasn’t worth the effort and didn’t have any power to change anything anyway. With hindsight I should have said, yeah arrest me, great publicity for you guys to arrest a bloke wearing a transformers t-shirt. Tossers.”
Had trouble with a tee-shirt of your own? Tell your story in the comments!”
Comments (40)
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I don’t have an amusing t-shirt anecdote, but I have the beginnings of a theory about why these things get blown out of proportion. I think these “authority figures” go down the path of harassing these people, and they can’t seem to be able to de-escalate the situation without seeming to lose face. It’s like they are afraid of appearing weak by changing their minds based on new information. Or rather, they are such alpha males, they cannot accept the notion that they might be wrong in the first place. I dunno. Always a riot to read about; would suck if it happened to me.
posted by Ed on 8-13-2008 at 10:53 am
My parents own a t-shirt printing shop, so my supply of unusual t-shirts is neverending.
My two favorites are one that has a picture of Alice (of Wonderland fame) holding up a plate and on the plate it says “Eat Me.” People do a double-take for that one all the time.
My other favorite is one that says “Lesbo-Commies for Jesus.” It means exactly nothing but it’s a cute pink color and really freaks people out.
posted by Rachel on 8-13-2008 at 10:55 am
Last November while on vacation in Cuba I bought a t-shirt on a day trip to Havana. It was a picture of the Cuban flag with a picture of Che Guevera over top of it. It’s a typical tourist type shirt and I never thought twice about wearing it here (Canada) but I brought the shirt with me when I went to Las Vegas this past April and the amount of dirty looks from both the general public and security at the MGM made me run back to the room and change. I figured I was pretty close to being detained or jump by a group of drunken frat boys. I had forgotten how bent out of shape people in the US get regarding Cuba.
posted by Cardinal_Fang on 8-13-2008 at 11:13 am
Way to go Don Zirkel! But you are lucky that the security guard didn’t get tough and throw his keys at you.
posted by Sandi Mays on 8-13-2008 at 11:15 am
I have two situations but I wasn’t the one wearing the shirt either time.
Way back in the early 90’s there was a local band in my area named Dirty Crabber whose t-shirts happily proclaimed “I got the crabs!” My boyfriend was sent home from school for wearing it. They said it was sexually explicit. Stupid.
After high school, I had a different boyfriend who almost got me fired by wearing an uncensored “F**k you I’m from Texas” t-shirt to pick me up from work one day. I worked at the zoo and I totally understand that shirt is offensive. But it was well after hours in the parking lot. I just don’t get how what someone else is wearing makes me a bad employee.
posted by Jessica on 8-13-2008 at 11:16 am
I am from Long Island, NY and I remember reading a newspaper article about a controversial t-shirt. Apparently, some kid from Hempstead, Long Island who had moved out of state was kicked out of school for wearing a t-shirt that read, “Hempstead, NY”. The teacher thought it was promoting marijuana and did not believe that it was the name of the town where he used to live. That always made me chuckle…
posted by Jill on 8-13-2008 at 11:16 am
My favorite T-shirt places are The onion and T-shirt hell. (for websites, omit spaces and -’s) Somebody in my high school got one that said on the front ‘there are two people f*****g on the back of this shirt. On the back, it said ‘Just kidding. Believe in Jesus’. People only complained about the back, saying that ‘believe in Jesus’ sounded like a command.
He also has ‘kittens think of nothing but murder all day’ and ‘this shirt is only blue when I’m thinking about dwarves’. I like those shirts, but nothing ever interesting happened with them.
posted by will on 8-13-2008 at 11:24 am
My high school girl’s track team made shirts one year that said, “Fast Girls Have Good Times” Which I thought was clever. Apparently they hadn’t been approved by the school, because suddenly all the girls had duct tape over the “Fast”…some used a sharpie to change the F to an E, as in East High School, but in my opinion the whole fight was stupid.
posted by Liz on 8-13-2008 at 11:54 am
I wore the Karl Marx Mental_floss shirt at an airport and got randomly searched. As far as I’m concerned, if my wearing a shirt with Karl Marx on it made them suspect me, it was worth it.
posted by Zach on 8-13-2008 at 12:06 pm
Liz, when I was on the swim team in high school we tried to put that on our shirts. The school wouldn’t let us. I thought it was kind of clever.
posted by Allison on 8-13-2008 at 12:39 pm
Amazing post.
Bart Simspon shirts were banned at my middle school in Delaware. In 5th grade Tim Gantzhorn had to wear tape over the double hockey-sticked curse in “I’m Bart Simpson, who the H^# are you?” Then, I vaguely remember all Bart shirts were banned just because he was proud of being an underachiever.
oh, and @Zach: That’s ridiculous!
posted by Mangesh on 8-13-2008 at 12:59 pm
I was in middle school when Southpark was just starting up and I was proud to be the first student in my school to strut in with an Eric Cartman Cheesy Poofs shirt on. One of my teachers said I was not allowed to wear such a shirt, to which I responded, “cheesy poofs, kick ass.” Needless to say, she went mental upon hearing this and I went straight to the office. To this day I stand by my statement.
posted by Els on 8-13-2008 at 1:26 pm
I met this girl in Paris who had just gotten back from a study abroad trip in Lebanon. She came back with a Hizholah t-shirt.
posted by Timothy on 8-13-2008 at 1:45 pm
My wrestling team had a new offensive one every year:
“wrestlers score from every position”
“wrestling-done in 6 minutes or less”
“Wrestling-penetration is key”
etc. This was in high school. I’m surprised our coach didnt get fired.
posted by Katie on 8-13-2008 at 1:48 pm
Didn’t get in trouble with authority for this one, but it prompted a ton of hatred my way. Was it anti-religious? Pro-gun? Anti-war? Anti-Zombie?
Nope. It was an XFL Jersey that I bought off ebay about 7 months after the league folded. On the very first day I wore it around my high school, this one ox of a kid walks up to me and glares, “The XFL sucked.” I respond “The X stands for Xtreme!” while forming an X with my hands. He just stares at me for five seconds and goes “The XFL sucked.”
After that point, whenever I wore the shirt I kept track of how many insults I got versus the people who realized I was just kidding +1 for compliments -1 for complaints… always ended up negative.
posted by Kevin on 8-13-2008 at 1:55 pm
Correction: Heather Farnham is from Spencer, NY, not Ithaca. Her high school is Spencer-Van Etten High School. I expect her shirt would have been well received if worn in Ithaca. :)
posted by Emily on 8-13-2008 at 2:07 pm
Story idea: The history of the printed t-shirt. Scene: 1950’s. The man: Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. He claims that as Disneyland was opening in Aneheim, in a spirt of fun and anarchy, he airbrushed the first ‘Rat Fink’ t-shirt as a way to thumb his nose at Disney. Car clubs and car culture was (and still is) huge in Southern California. Car club guys saw the shirts and asked him to make t-shirts for them. An idustry was born.
posted by fixedgear on 8-13-2008 at 2:19 pm
Ok..REALLY off topic, and I hope you come back and look at this, but small world time:
Mangesh I don’t know who you are but I grew up across the street from the Gantzhorns. No Lie. Charter Oaks, Hockessin DE. Graduated from H.B Middle and A.I High.
WEIRD
posted by Caitlin on 8-13-2008 at 2:22 pm
At my uniform-wearing Baptist school sometimes (as a special treat!!) we could wear “Christian” t-shirts. This one guy always wore a shirt that said Ezekiel (a skate brand). I don’t think any teacher every caught on.
posted by Kim on 8-13-2008 at 2:30 pm
In regards the the ‘gay, fine by me’ shirt, I got to school at James Madison University in VA and every semester the GLBT club hands out a ridiculous number of those shirts for free… probably around a few thousand or so, during the GLBT week (every club has a self-declared ‘week’) and they chose a specific day for everyone to wear them, and on that day almost my entire campus (17,000) is wearing those shirts. Not necessarily sponsored directly through school, but kind of funny how times have changed.
And also, same school, last semester we had a ‘no drive day’ where one of the clubs I was in promoted alternative transportation instead of single cars driving to campus, and for everyone that rode the bus from off campus to on campus, they got a free t-shirt (paid for by the bus dept and the school I believe) that had a retro picture of the bus on the front of the shirt with the words ‘RIDE ME’ and on the back it said ‘alternative transportation is easy.’ We made over 5,000 and every single one was handed out.
Probably one of the best shirts I own, and I always get cool looks when I wear it outside of campus… even on campus those who haven’t seen it yet love it.
posted by KatyK on 8-13-2008 at 3:01 pm
One year in my highschool the student council made t-shirts that said “We lead, you follow” which needless to say pissed A LOT of students off. So to take them down a peg or two, a bunch of students made t-shirts with sheep on the front and on the back it said “You talk, we don’t listen.” Following that the theater club made shirts that said “we act, you watch.” Good times, good times.
posted by Laura on 8-13-2008 at 3:25 pm
In HS I wore a GNR Appetite for Destruction t-shirt which had the original cover art on it. Predictably, some teacher found it offensive, and I was to turn it inside-out, but chose to just put a bit a tape over the offending naked breast instead.
And Ransom: “I hate Florida” WTF? Does your buddy over at Whatever make “I hate Ranson Riggs” t-shirts? Just for that comment we’re going to f*ck up your next presidential election.
posted by Florida on 8-13-2008 at 3:28 pm
My brother has a t-shirt with an *outline* of a knife (the folding, pocket type). He got it from our father, who got it from some knife manufacturer. He wore it to school one day (he was in 8th grade), and a girl in his class didn’t like it because it “condoned violence”. (?!?) He got sent to the principal’s office, who tells him to change his shirt. My brother refuses. The principal calls home to let my parents know about the situation (bad idea). My father got the call, and told the principal where he could go and that my brother would wear whatever he wanted. That was the end of that.
posted by Amy D on 8-13-2008 at 3:34 pm
Mangesh! My BF went through the same thing with the who the he** are you bart t-shirt!!! he got hauled into the office and they threatened to call his parents about the shirt, he responds with “who do you think bought me the shirt?”
posted by Emmie on 8-13-2008 at 3:47 pm
I used to work at a private school. One day a grandpa came in to watch his elementary grandaughter’s program wearing a questionable t-shirt. It had a picture of a pot leaf, and a picture of the president. The caption over the leaf said “good bush”; over the president…”bad bush”. I wondered if we could enforce the dresscode on the adults as well as the students.
posted by Laurie on 8-13-2008 at 3:52 pm
When I was still a Junior in high school, the senior class had a tradition of making “senior shirts” which would be worn on especially spirited days. Anyway, the Seniors that year decided to get black-and-red tie-dyed shirts that had the word “Shibby” on the front… and some sort of witty saying on the back. For those that don’t know, “Shibby” was a phrase that was popularized by “Dude, Where’s My Car” a couple years earlier. To make a longer story shorter, the school deemed that “Drug lingo” and therefore banned the shirts from school.
Predictably, the seniors wore them anyway with the offending phrase taped-over as some form of protest. Everyone then forgot about it, since no one but the seniors who got ripped off by the shirts cared anyway.
posted by Atredeus on 8-13-2008 at 4:06 pm
My favourite t-shirt has to be the one with a cartoon of Jesus in an ice hockey uniform accompanied by the slogan “JESUS SAVES…He passes to Moses, he shoots, he scores!”
posted by dangermouse on 8-13-2008 at 4:33 pm
In college we theatre dorks made embroidered sweatshirts with our “forority” letters on the front (you know, the nice Greek ones with the satin letters embroidered onto the fabric?). Well, our forority name was “I ETA PI,” and we wore the sweatshirt in droves. While the non-Greeks thought we were a real sorority or fraternity, the Greeks got really pissed off. It was awesome. I still have the sweatshirt.
posted by Holly on 8-13-2008 at 5:33 pm
My school has had two issues with t-shirts one was against the then superintendent with a top 10 list as to why the students did not like her the other was when the principal told the star of the varsity basketball team that she was not a good role model because she is gay.
On a side note:Ithaca as someone who lives less than an hour away can seem a bit out there to some people. But where else can you have a Buddhist monestary with a new complex being built, two colleges, the LGBT community, a plethora of hippies,its own currency… and many other random things.
posted by Sevita on 8-13-2008 at 6:44 pm
Our HS mascot was a Bomber, and the pep club went on and on about Bomber Spirit. So we started an unofficial pep club and had tshirts with nicknames on the back. About 100 people got one made, so at games we had a whole section of kids wearing the shirts with the name of our club in big letters on front: BS CREW.
posted by Pete on 8-13-2008 at 6:52 pm
Our HS mascot was a Bomber, and the pep club went on and on about Bomber Spirit. So we started an unofficial pep club and had tshirts with nicknames on the back. About 100 people got one made, so at games we had a whole section of kids wearing the shirts with the name of our club in big letters on front: BS crew (”BS” much larger than “crew”).
posted by Pete on 8-13-2008 at 6:53 pm
Recently, while out of town, I was wearing one of my favorite T-shirts and couldn’t understand why I was getting dirty looks. Then I was asked to leave a store. Why? Because my shirt was a Detroit Red Wings/Stanley Cup winners one. I don’t think I will wear the shirt while on vacation in the Minneapolis/St Paul area in September. :) (Being asked to leave the store was done in a tongue-in-cheek manner, I think.)
My favorite shirt of all time said “Gods last name is NOT dammit!” I even wore that one to church–as a 30-something mother of two.
posted by cmk on 8-13-2008 at 7:13 pm
i got in a suprising amount of trouble for somethgin stupid on my shirt.
there was a cartoon on the shirt of two cows standing in the middle of a flock of sheep. it said, oh man, are we ever in deep sheep.
i was in high school at the time, and my senior year i decided to go to trade school. my home school had no problem with the shirt, but the trade school sure did. they pretty much forbit me from wearing it. because they knew what it “really meant”.
i said it didn’t “really mean” anything, it was two cows in a flock of sheep, but you can’t really argue with teachers. lol
posted by Sue on 8-14-2008 at 1:06 am
My friend bought a shirt from Hot Topic in high school that had a picture of the robot Gir from ‘Invader Zim’ riding a pig with a caption below it that said (surprise surprise) ‘Ride the Pig!’ Her mom freaked out and wouldn’t let her wear it because she thought it meant ‘ride’ the pig. She still has it and wears it whenever the heck she feels like it. She also has a bumper sticker that says ‘F#ck me I’m Irish’ that we all giggle over once in a while.
And bravo Heathyre. She reacted well to the stupidity that goes on in schools in the name of ‘political correctness’. Gods forbid the poor innocent student body gets exposed to such horrendously damaging ideals such as tolerance and open-mindedness, and *gasp* respect for people’s life choices. THE HORROR!!
And I want that Darwin/truth/SHUT UP shirt.
posted by heather on 8-14-2008 at 2:53 am
To the JMU alum… I graduated from Washington and Lee University, also in Virginia. As the president of the GLBT group one year, I also passed out tons of the “Gay? Fine By Me” shirts. It’s actually a movement started by Duke University students — they’ve even got a website (click my name).
Also in college, some of the sports teams helped the freshmen move into the dorms on move-in day. They wore and later sold t-shirts with their logo on the front, and “The Rugby Team Welcomes Your Daughters” on the back.
posted by Steph on 8-14-2008 at 6:51 am
I got a lot of dirty looks on the day I was helping my daughter move in dorm on Duke Univ.I had on a UNC shirt.
Also My son was on the Drum line at school and had some t-shirts made a lot of people did not like “LSD”
posted by LCT on 8-14-2008 at 8:00 am
my favorite….. JESUS SAVES on the front…..MOSES INVESTS on the back!! too funny!!
posted by motorkitty on 8-14-2008 at 10:24 am
At Six Flags Great Adventure a friend of mine was denied RE-entry because he had a gun on his t-shirt (the shirt he’d been wearing in the park all morning). He had to change whereas I was walking around all day with a purse with a gun on it. Go figure.
A similar non-t-shirt story is a friend of mine who had a pendant confiscated at the airport because it depicted a gun. It was about 1/4 inch long and they told her she coulnd’t board the plane with it.
Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ridiculous?
posted by Maple on 8-14-2008 at 11:48 am
As a snotty teen I had a “bad boy” shirt that had large lettering on it:
Second place is the first loser.
I’d get something every other time I wore it.
posted by Rob on 8-22-2008 at 4:02 am
My favorite offensive shirt is, “I’d rather be masturbating.” Good to wear anywhere, anytime.
posted by Trim on 10-14-2009 at 1:45 pm