Fantastic Blognanza!

This is the tale of my disenchantment with Threadless and my first purchase from them (on February 5th, 2007) in over a year. I had been quite a loyal fan for a long while. I enjoyed the clever yet artsy designs that they continued to release. But a sense of unease was gradually building as I accrued mountains of “I <3 Threadless” stickers. It’s hard to say what exactly the tipping point was. It must have had something to do with the intersection of four critical factors.

1) First, there was a long stretch of time during which not a single Threadless design appealed to me. As the Threadless email newsletter disappointed me week after week, my interest began to fade. I began to look forward to checking my email on Monday less and less, but still did I check. Very few were the fruits of my labors.

2) Besides not liking many of the new designs, the fit of their Fruit of the Loom 50/50 Best t-shirts was so inconsistent that I couldn’t wear several of them. Some of the mediums fit me nicely, but often the cut was either too ‘boxy’, and made me look like a big dork, or too long, also making me look like a big dork. Although I eventually switched to buying smalls, the smalls fit me a little more tightly than I would like. Conveniently, medium American Apparels fit me perfectly.

3) Third, Threadless’ popularity was skyrocketing. My evidence for this claim comes from my own experience (besides their rapidly growing sales) that, during my senior year of high school (’04-’05), very few others at my school knew about Threadless, let alone wore their shirts (and this was in a suburb of Chicago, where Threadless itself is located). And we proud few, we band of brothers had a special Threadless bond. The very next year, or so I heard, there had been a veritable explosion of Threadless-donners. I wanted something more original. In fact, this desire led both to my discovery of many great independent t-shirt companies, as well as my desire to take things into my own hands (and Greg’s hands and John’s hands, too) with the founding of Fantastic Bonanza. Threadless was hardly an exclusive club any longer.

4) Besides decreased exclusitivity, another result of Threadless’ increasing popularity was a product that catered less to the small group of discerning t-shirt connoisseurs of which I considered myself a part, and more to the ‘lowest common denominator’. I rationalized this conclusion with some logic that went something like this:
1. More people (and a wider demographic) are wearing Threadless shirts.
2. Many people who wear Threadless t-shirts participate in the design selection process by scoring designs.
3. Therefore, a wider demographic of people are participating in Threadless’ design selection process.
4. If a wider demographic of people like something, it likely appeals less to the tastes of a specific sort of person, and more to the tastes of a broader group of people.
5. Therefore, the outcome of Threadless’ design selection is the selection of shirts that appeal more to this broader group of people (e.g., upper middle class young adults) than to a more specific sort of person (e.g., me).

And so ended my days of buying Threadless t-shirts. As the weeks and months rolled by, I gradually replaced my favorite Threadless tees with wares from other shops. Not only did I think my new t-shirts more exclusive (I have yet to see somebody wearing one of the same t-shirts that I wear), but I liked their designs more and they fit me better. But just the other day, something extraordinary happened. As I opened this week’s Threadless newsletter (I had never unsubcsribed), I was greeted by their announcement of a ‘Spring Broke’ sale (how clever).

Yes, that’s right. Another $10 Threadless sale. A thought flashed through my mind, ‘Why not visit? I have a few streetteam points left, and I haven’t given Threadless serious consideration for quite some time.’ So I did it. I went to their site. On the right hand side, there was an image of a red, limited-edition Threadless collector’s can cozy. I wanted in on this kitschy crap history.

Browsing by stock, I found a few designs that look like potential purchases (none of the most recent releases):

Growth for the Sake of Growth

Sailing the High Trees

The Captain’s Dream

No Repeats!

Get Some Fresh Air

There were others that were interesting too, but they just didn’t appeal to me that much for whatever reasons. Some were too typically ‘Threadless’ (even though they print the work of many designers, there is something about the style of many of them that is fairly consistent), for which reason I decided against purchasing No Repeats. Others were clever but didn’t have enough substance.

I liked The Captain’s Dream because of its surreal imagery. I’m not really sure why I didn’t like it enough to buy it, actually. Sailing the High Trees had primarily aesthetic appeal for me. I liked the style (although I think the boat and the bottom layer of leaves could use some cross-hatch shading), which is not typically ‘Threadless’. That, and it is a somewhat absurd image, which I usually enjoy, but it isn’t overstated. But again, I didn’t buy it.

After much deliberation, I settled on Growth for the Sake of Growth and Get Some Fresh Air. Growth for the Sake of Growth is a terrific illustration, is printed on American Apparel (so I know it will fit), and is a great visual pun (cancer; get it?) accompanied by a potentially meaningful interpretation (’growth for the sake of growth’, cancer kills the organism… a metaphor for industrial society functioning under neoliberal economics! Beautiful!). I like Get Some Fresh Air for similar reasons. I’ve always enjoyed creative uses of color in single color prints, and the juxtaposition of (malfunctioning) technology with nature is one of my favorite themes of all time. So I did it. I bought two Threadless shirts. And I only feel slightly ashamed. I opted for the cheapest shipping (USPS Smartmail, which is a new option since the last time I ordered anything from them. I did some research on it, since I had never heard of it, and it seems to be a cooperative effort between DHL and USPS that allows for economical shipping of flats with valuable services like tracking). The shirts might not arrive before my Spring Break, but that’s okay.

And that’s how it came to pass that I rode an atomic bomb because the bomb bay doors of my B-52 jammed- I mean, how it came to pass that I bought a couple of Threadless t-shirts.

Expensiveness: $10 (normal tee) / $20 (Select tee) / $35 (hoodie), until the sale ends on March 12th, today $15 (normal guy’s tee) / $17 (normal girl’s tee) / $25 (Select tee) / $40 (hoodie) / $17 (kid’s tee)
Link: [Threadless]

P.S. While on the subject of Threadless, I think it’s worth mentioning that, despite whatever reasons I have for not liking their shirts all that much, I’m still proud to own both Pandamonium and Follow It on heather gray. And HIGH Voltage, even though I’m not a big fan of the software company, is still one of my favorite shirts. Oh, and I have one of their old ‘Nude No More’ stickers on my computer. If you haven’t seen one, they look like this (I cut mine out just like this person did, too!):