Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world Wispy2891 @lemmy.world 8h ago

People are actually paying to wear an ad?

Got an email that says "please pay $33 + shipping to get a t-shirt with our ad on it"

There's people that would actually pay for something like this? This stuff is usually give away for free at conferences and then used as a sleeping dress, no?

30 comments

People pay for shirts with the nike logo on it all the time. Maybe folks think they're big enough now that they can do the same.
OP acting like he seriously doesn't own a shirt with a logo on it.
Uhh yes. Often. First day on Earth?
I developed a distate for visible branding on my clothes and other items around 7 years ago and ever since I've gone out of my way to not buy any clothes with logos on them and I've been scratching away / putting tape over the logos on everything else.
- I feel like I became cognizant of this when I tried customizing my GTA Online character in something that wasn't a nice suit (street wear). After scroling through so much cotton billboard it made get how tacky and humiliating it is. Turned out to be much harder in real life to find non-branded shirts with cool designs, such utter bullshit.
  
  This is why I love furry stuff. Nomad Complex, Hyena Agenda and Weasel Gear are great. I mean, I guess Nomad Complex and Hyena Agenda could technically be kinda considered branded since Nomad Complex puts their logo on the front of their hoodies and Hyena Agenda has some shirts that incorporate their logo into the design, but the designs are generally really good.
  
  Edit: okay fine, it's one of the reasons why I love furry stuff.
- I've always had that dislike. I even do not wear clothes with text on them as I feel like I'm constantly saying that. Often the texts designers put on clothing is nonsensicalb stuff. F.i. Hollywood, I'm not from there, I've never been there, why would I want to say Hollywood the entire day?
  
  There's surprisingly little overlap between text people put on clothes and what I'd like them to say but there's a shitload of clothes the people feel like it needs some text on it.
  
  Anyway that's my pet peeve.
Ever heard of brands?
Glad you asked me what it is. So you see, there are things call webpages. Yes, they are pages on the web. Guess what, there are people making them. Shocking, right? So part of the webpage…
- my favorite feature on this image every time I see it is the man on the right. pretty sure he is not amused about having to listen to what is happening behind him
  
  I kinda think of it as a memento mori... he's like: yep, that was me, 20 years ago... keep the sunglasses on son, now lean in and put your hand on her neck... yep, I remember those days...
  
  The not-quite-visible whitehaired person to the left only adds to the effect. Like: this is the inevitable course of your life, buddy.
Just like a band shirt, no?
People pay huge amounts of money for clothes with adverts on them.
from my perspective there are two types of t-shirt acquisitions: a) you need cloths b) you want to spread a message.

i would think most of the fashion brand t-shirts fall mainly into a) with a little bit of c) you want to be part of a superior group

most of the funny t-shirts and band-t-shirts fall into category b) and basically you also place yourself into a certain group but into a smaller, more specific one. the big fashion brands are arbitrary so many people can identify with them. they don't want to be associated with a real message, because then some people would be excluded from wearing that brand.

so the t-shirt presented as exhibit 1) certainly falls into category b). but i really can not come up with a message you want to send by wearing the t-shirt: it's not the "font-nerd" it's not the "web-dev-nerd" or anything like this. how big is the overlap of star-wars-fans and font-awesome users?

i think at the end it's just a marketing department that jumps on the latest bandwagon of internet memes in the hope that they can gain some popularity.

they could produce t-shirts that are fun to wear and spread the brand more subtle, but in this case i completely agree with op: this is a very strange campaign. and i also think that the comments here comparing this with fashion brands completely miss the point.
Isn't that an open source project? How else do you want them to make money?
- The old version from years ago was, the current version isn't. (Hence the existence of fork awesome)
- Don't think they are open source but they do provide a ton of free, high quality icons. Presumably they make money off the organizations paying for the icon packs.
  
  I'm not sure what OP has against them. He should take a look at how Nike has hypnotized a portion of the population into giving them money for shoes with a check mark.
  
  Nothing against them, it's just that it totally looks like a conference gift shirt, but indeed fashion brands brainwashed us to daily wear ads
In their minds, they're wearing something to show off.
I mean, I wear band merch all the time, which is basically t-shirts, hats and hoodies that advertise the band.
Idk what's the organisation structure, but they can be used as a gift for donators. The EFF does that and has pretty cool original tshirts than change every few years.
Some random ass site making shirts will always be funny to me because why would I wear an ad for a odt to pdf converter
Um. If you order by May 25th, they will ship it three weeks into the past? Or do they need to know by May 25th 2025 to get it to you on time by May 4th 2026?
I love my Jet Lag: The Game hat. I would love if more people subscribed to Nebula
I despise branded clothing but that does look like something funny to wear.
I stopped wearing any clothing with visible brand logos years ago. The only branding on my shirts is for bands and podcasts that I like.
I don't get the appeal either, the idea of paying a company to advertise for them always struck me as odd, but I understand a lot of people, including content creators, mainly make money off merch, so I don't hold it against them.

30 comments