Topman’s Appalling Attempt at Banter by Nick Bryans
Geez Geez
Novelty T-Shirts appear to be a massive market, which – for me – shows the real failure of capitalism. Some may say ‘yeah, but what about crippling debt and widening inequality?’, which is also a downside, but the fact that this economic model has allowed people to make cash out of tops with ‘If found please return to the pub’ on it makes me sick.
Perennial tax dodgers and spawners of the hipster culture ‘TopShop/Man’ have decided that novelty ‘lad’ t-shirts is the next market to bring their fledging brand into. However, as with the head of any multi-national conglomerate, when you funnel your obscene profits through Monaco in order to not have your cigar reserves to pay a nurse’s wages, you can become a bit detached from the average person on the street. So when deciding which quirky witticisms to put on your garments, this can leave you at a disadvantage.
Rather than go with the old favourites which appear in the common patois of your average ‘Lad on Tour’, Topman, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from more downgrade retailers, went for the often neglected market of ‘insinuating domestic violence’ and ‘rampant sexism’.
T-Shirt number 1, modelled by the invisible car James Bond had in Tomorrow Never Dies, seems to imply that the wearer’s friend has a partner who could potentially be described as a ‘dog’. Not a literal dog, as bestiality is a crime in the UK, but just ugly. So ugly that she requires a derogatory T-Shirt knocked up and worn at all times by other bystanders. Now I’ll admit that I have come across a number of people who it could be argued are not ‘aesthetically pleasing’, but at no point did I think ‘Fuck, I need to get home a produce a t-shirt to properly convey my hatred for this person’s face.’
The second T-Shirt, modelled here by, erm, the invisible man, implies that the wearer is apologising to a ladyfriend for an mystery faux pas, though with excuses such as ‘you provoked me’, ‘I was drunk’ and ‘I couldn’t help it’, it doesn’t take anyone with half a brain to assume what this could only realistically refer to. Now although TopMan might argue that anyone who would even contemplate wearing a T-Shirt with rib-tickling banter on it would not possess the aforementioned ‘half-brain’, this isn’t really a suitable defence. Soz, Big Phil.
Anyway, the T-Shirts went viral and after many complaints, Topman pulled them from their website. They also issued this half-hearted apology:
“We have received some negative feedback regarding two of our printed T-shirts. Whilst we would like to stress that these T-shirts were meant to be light hearted and carried no serious meaning we have made the decision to remove these from store and on-line as soon as possible. We would like to apologise to those who may have been offended by these designs.”
The really worrying thing here is that no-one – in this mammoth company – at any point thought ‘Yeah, erm, domestic violence? Are we *sure* we wanna go there?’. The fact that it barely made it to lunch on the site before the immense public backlash caused it to get pulled makes you really worry about what kind of reprobates are running these humongous fashion houses.
Earlier this week we discussed John Galliano and who we felt were the biggest twats in fashion, but they were deemed ‘small and twatty’ because of things like attacking people, sexually assaulting underage girls, tax evasion, sexual harrasment and accepting presents from dictators. This isn’t as bad as that, it’s just so unbelievably stupid.
With anything this clear cut, and with anything as one-sided as an argument can be, there are always people ready to defend it. Many highlighted this T-Shirt;
…imploring girls to throw rocks at boys. Now firstly, if Topshop and mainstream society uses the tagline ‘boys are stupid, throw rocks at them’ from a t-shirt aimed primarily at 10 year old girls as the barometer on how to deal with domestic abuse, you again have to worry. Secondly, domestic violence and alcohol fuelled domestic violence are genuine problems in this country, and ones to be taken very seriously. I don’t believe that misogynistic rock-lobbing is quite as big an issue. I’ve never seen an infomercial featuring a bloke cowering away from a rabble of women, just after they raided a nearby quarry for flint, asking you to donate to the Treatment Of Stone Sacrilege of England Representative Society (or TOSSERS, for short). Though, didn’t Janine kill Barry by chucking a rock at him in EastEnders? Or did she throw him onto a rock? Either way, early evening soap operas do suggest that we shouldn’t underestimate girls with rocks.
One cracking defence has been the old favourite, ‘If you don’t like the t-shirts, don’t by one. Simple!’. And I fully support this. In celebration of this view, I’m going to start producing a range of 15 inch rubber dildos with a picture of Hitler on the head, Jesus on the shaft, Lady Diana on the left bollock and Anne Frank on the right. Utterly offensive and in putrid taste, but if you don’t like my photographic dildo obituary, you don’t have to buy one. Simple!
Anyway, in an attempt to help TopMan and secure myself a sweet position as head buyer (and judging by the present occupant it shouldn’t be a hard gig to score), here are some classic OI OI BANTER T-shirts from yester year.
Nothing says ‘brawl outside the Golden Grill at 3am’ quite like these delicious threads.
Related Posts
Recent Posts
The Internet
Comments
Leave a Reply
© 2012
Stop getting Bond wrong
nitpick…
“misogynistic rock-lobbing”
should be
“misandristic rock-lobbing”
As it’s targeted against men.
I’ll crawl back in my hole now.
Um, these dildos sounds amazing. Two please.
I like the sausage rolls one.
In a “on this website not on my chest” way.