What's With All The T-Shirt Controversies?
Last summer, Anthony Weiner's electronic indiscretion on Twitter made headlines all over the print and broadcast and the web.
But in an era of social media, iphones, and tablets, how is it that the most consistently controversial news stories have to do with... t shirts?
That's right, in 2011 alone there were dozens of stories about t shirts causing outrage. In an age where anyone can go online to design your own t shirt, these things are becoming more and more common.
Even in the last week, the Secret Service was mobilized to investigate youths who posted a photo on Facebook... of a T-shirt of President Obama's face riddled with bullet holes.
As disturbing as this may be, the internet is home to dozens of images of Obama as a zombie with a bullet in his brain. These raised online controversies, but the Secret Service didn't seem to take an interest until someone put it on a t shirt. (Videos of similar images have been circulating around the web and social media for months).
Tasteless though the image may be, is it demonstrative of an intent to actually harm a public figure? It's hard to tell how law enforcement authorities read t shirts. Some of them clearly don't take them too seriously. Last November, a police union in Northern California caused an uproar in the community by printing t shirts with a photo of a kid in jail that read "U Raise 'Em, We Cage 'Em". I thought this was kind of funny, though I can see how it could be offensive. But the community was outraged and had the shirts banned.
Don't policemen have the right to make bad jokes as much as the rest of us? Clearly, the public has lost its sense of humor when it comes to t shirts. Last October, a high school in Arizona banned cheerleaders from wearing t shirts they designed to raised money to support breast cancer research. The shirt's slogan "Feel for lumps, save your bumps" was deemed too offensive by the administrators of the school. The students felt the administrators were blowing the controversy out of proportion, and they were right.
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