Fashion | What the hell does your t-shirt say?

Multi remembers the text shirts of the 1990s, which were bought especially at markets or gas stations. “I’m not a gynecologist but I can take a look”, as the classic text says.

The world changes, but funny t-shirts remain and also inspire internet meme curators.

Especially on Instagram, there are numerous accounts that compile t-shirts with texts that are silly, outrageous, or both. They push the boundaries of good taste when it comes to religion or sexuality, just like the “attitude shirts” of the good old days.

A particularly popular account is Goodshirts, which has been collecting confusing shirts for years and has set up an online store selling them in connection with the account. Goodshirts has more than 250,000 followers.

The account description refers to translation errors: lost in translation.

Indeed, early meme shirt accounts curated clothes found in China and Vietnam with strange English phrases on them. Text for those who do not understand English Crap Your Hands are just letters in a row. A Western tourist would be repulsed in the same way as a Chinese tourist would be repulsed by a writing mark tattooed on himself, which means chicken stew.

There is something similar about t-shirts that can be worn, like funny typos on grocery store signs, which occasionally cross the news threshold.

Now it’s only people who carry typos.

University of Turku economic sociologist and appearance researcher Erica Aberg I remember very well how in the 1980s and 1990s you could order t-shirts from the catalogs that came between Suosik, which of course had some kind of fun. Even if it’s a guy who carries his stomach in a wheelbarrow. According to Åberg, the shirt could very well be on “some hipster somewhere”.

In the attitude shirts of the new era, global internet culture “muddles” with local culture.

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If you see an ironic shirt online that just suits you, you can often order it right away.

“Bad humor makes you laugh when it’s so absurd and stupid but inventive. It’s an old thing, but now meme pages and shirts have new subjects. Internet humor is often aimed at small groups and ambiguous. Subtly playing with the boundaries of good taste,” says Åberg.

Above all, the monochrome t-shirt has become an exception. It is normal for the shirt to have some text or image on it. No matter what. California Surfing University est. 1948 for want of better.

And if you see an ironic shirt online that just suits you, you can often order it right away. In everyday life, it works as a wink to your own “gang”.

“It’s interesting why we spill the internet into real life. We learn to look at the world in such a way that we laugh at things that attract the internet eye. We talk a lot about internet phenomena in our free time. In the club, memes are shown to the neighbor,” says Åberg.

When funny shirts or old, gender-humorous mugs found at the flea market are presented online, they start to be seen in their own lives as well.

From a summer holiday trip, the t-shirt of the host that reads can stay in your mind for weeks #summer, #holiday #hammock #joggingand it is not clear why on earth there is a subject tag in front of the words.

Åberg says that maybe using the hashtag shirt is a way to tell that I’m really spending this summer here and I’m not hanging out on the internet. But the researcher would also think about where he saw the shirt and what age person wore it. That way you might find out what the wearer of the shirt thinks and how ironic his intentions are.

However, he continues that the cardinal sin of sociologists is to find meanings everywhere and in everything.

“It is not always conscious what a person puts on.”