January 11, 2006
DistrictTees: The Joke's On You
What is it about the joke-tee that is so potentially alluring? Could it be the irresistible opportunity to shock and offend? Is it tied to the indie-culture affinity for semi-obscure references? The combination of the two? Is it the same hope for wit by association that drives people to quote Will Ferrell movies or put MR. PIBB + RED VINES = CRAZY DELICIOUS in their away messages (or on their t-shirts)? Whatever the case may be, such shirts are not only prevalent, but their online cottage industry is quite lucrative. Though they may be a few steps farther up the evolutionary fashion ladder than sparkly “Princess” t-shirts, their tacky brethren, most “humorous” tees fall more than short of funny into the realm of simply corny, crass, and cringe-inducing. So naturally we were a little anxious to read The Rock Creek Rambler’s recent post about a brand-new source of comic hipster tees, almost all emblazoned with some sort of DC theme.
For the most part, DistrictTees.com stays with the traditional Urban Outfitters formula of faux-vintage graphics and two-bit puns, though both the designs and the punch lines often look like they were made by middle school students who downloaded a shareware font pack and decided to type a few pee pee jokes into MS Paint. It would be easy to utterly dismiss DistrictTees based on most of their apparel, but there are a few puzzlingly clever designs. We admit we liked the “I’m Late Because I Ride The Red Line” shirt, and a jab at the popped collar camp is always appreciated (though we aren't sure what those arrows are supposed to be pointing at. Is that a nipple joke in diguise?). They have a few to indulge your regionalist tendencies as well. They also offer a local alternative to the Neighborhoodies monopoly on urban neighborhood gear, though they don’t provide anywhere near the amount of customization that Neighborhoodies does. We hope that if DistrictTees wants to carve out a niche for themselves in our city, they’ll try to cater more towards District in-jokes and at least half-clever references, rather than tawdry venereal disease puns. The site does include a submission form if you have any better design ideas, and they offer a 10% discount on your first order if you feel like grabbing that Red Line shirt.
Picture taken from DistrictTees.com.
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Where can I get a "Bitch Set Me Up" shirt?
Hello DC Maureen,
Oh, we already got a shirt of the great Marion Barry already in the works and should be released tomorrow or Friday!
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
I, for one, welcome our new tshirt overlords.
Hey, nice way to support local business, asshole.
Vote for Pedro and all of your wildest dreams will come true.
For the record, Dupont's really not that gay anymore.
DCist Sam, maybe you can have a t-shirt printed: "Bitter I didn't think of this idea first!"
C'mon guys, they have some all right shirts, but lots of these deserve to be ridiculed a bit. I doubt District Tees is upset about this attention.
DCist Sam, or maybe the Gonorrific or Syphilicious hits a little too close to home?
I personally love my Q and Not U DC in distress shirt.
Personally, I still like my shirt I got from neighborhoodies.com. I wear it when I feel the need to reprezent.
It says "Woodley Park" in olde english, Easy-E gansta-style letters and has a skull and crossbones.
Nobody f's with me at Chipotle or at Open City when I roll in wearing it :)
Ryan, you may be right, but why does Puma get the cool favorable writeup and a local business, run probably by a local guy, get the snarky "grow up" treatment?
Plus these guys aren't charging $50 for a hoddie like neighborhoodies (they are going for $37 for the local hoodies). Can't beat that.
That's a fair question. For one thing, they were written by different people. For another, while we try to pay extra attention to local merchants, we don't look at them in a completely uncritical way (consider our Cakelove coverage). A great local t-shirt outfitter would be fantastic, but instead we get VD jokes and play on the word jihad. It could be better, and it's fair for Sam to point that out.
And as I mentioned above, we are directing traffic toward their site, which is probably the best thing we can do for their business.
I have to agree with Ryan. Everyone has different tastes. Some people love our VD shirts but there are bound to be some who don't and that's cool. Too each his own. As long as they give you all a laugh, then we are happy.
Peace,
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
Good response to the question. You're right, i'm sure they don't mind the publicity.
Cool site and tees. I'll be making some suggestions and purchases.
The post itself is typical of the increasingly arrogant and cooler-than-thou stance DCist has been taking over the past 6 months or so.
Yeah, those shirts are not so original and lack DC Street Cred. I suspect transients would get more out of these shirts.
I don't think the article was negative. I'm just sick of yet another tee-shirt corp. that's cool cause it didnt' come from Urban Outfitter store.
Now I did go to the American Apparel store and was a bit impressed. Somebody please create a clothing company with a tag "Produced in Downtown DC".
How about a tee-shirt like this:
BARRY DA CRACKHEAD & REES DA CRACKPOT
Hey alfie,
Our site has 100% been created right here in DC. I have spent many hours at at Tryst, the Toledo Lounge (which my partner Daniel used to work at), Love Cafe (which is where I am now) as well as many other local places designing the shirts. Was I born here? No, but I have been here for 3 years, love living here, and since no local has come up with what we have done, we decided that if people want to show local pride, we would give them an opportunity to do so. And a lot of our shirts are American Apparel, so you can get a shirt with your neighborhood and a DC flag on it. Why don't you shoot me an e-mail at marcos@districttees.com and I can specially make one for you?
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
Marcos said:
"No, but I have been here for 3 years, love living here, and since no local has come up with what we have done, we decided that if people want to show local pride, we would give them an opportunity to do so."
Actually, Kathleen Schaefer, who helped found DC Pulse Magazine, started making DC flag shirts almost two years ago that have become so fashionable. Not that the DC flag is design is owned by anyone, but I'd say she was the first one to popularize various colored shirts with the basic DC flag design. She even has a cute design with 3 hearts substituted for the 3 stars. Oh, and she's a local.
http://kathleenshafer.com/shirts.htm
WTF? Just went to DistrictTees website and they got no neighborhood shirt for Petworth!
Although I do like the Other Ride's Your Dad shirt! Sweet!
Hey Petworthian,
Sorry about not having a Petworth shirt up yet. We launched a bit earlier than expected because lots of people wanted to buy shirts so we put up what we had made so people could purchase them. We are still in the process of making as many neighborhoods but if you want one, we can make one for you in any style and color you want. Just shoot us an e-mail at neighborhoods@districtees.com and fill out the submission form and we will get you all set up. Thanks.
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
Hello to All.
Petworthian,
We have Petworth shirts at Best of Washington DC T-shirts and Gifts - www.bestdcgifts.com -. We have many other neighborhoods. If you don't see what you're looking for, shoot me an e-mail at shopkeeper@bestdcgifts.com and we'll be happy to add your neighborhood.
FYI: Never order anything from CafePress. The quality of thier shirts are SO BAD! I originally set up a shop with them and shut it down because the printing was off and the shirts were pretty poor quality. I saw that districttees has some shirts that are American Apparel which is are pretty sweet. They are soft and fit really well.
David,
Sorry you had that experience. We've been pleased with Cafepress and have found both their products and printing to be of high quality. There's a money-back guarantee if anyone is ever unhappy with his/her order, but so far we haven't had any returns.
Hey DC Gal,
The shirts are not made from good material (they are thin and stretch way too easily). I just felt bad selling them to people because of the quality. Good luck though.
-d
Hey Marcos, hopefully you have some Jonathan Rees t-shirts in the works. I would buy one of those for each member of my family. And I'm sure that Rees would buy one for each of his imaginary online friends.
I just wanted to say thanks to all those who defended DistrictTees against the bad comments made by Sam. I was at the gym this morning wearing my Sypilicious shirt and people came up to me and said they loved it! We were originally only going to do DC related shirts but people saw us wearing our “Sexy Socks” shirt and the shirts making fun of the “collar up syndrome” that we ended up putting up some shirts that will be on our future site SlapHappyTees.com. Thanks for supporting a local business!
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
I guess I see the point about supporting local business. However internet businesses aren't really local, because they can have a tax ID in a another state. Calling an internet business 'local' is pretty meaningless. Also, if you're going to support a local business support one that doesn't suck.
The designs are unfunny and unoriginal. The website is sloppy and unattractive. And the entire concept is painfully obviously copied, as evidenced by the line that invites us to send an email to another t-shirt provider.
Come on people, bthe fact that it says DC doesn't mean that you have to defend it. Crap is crap.
Yo Come On...,
My Tax ID is in DC. I got it right in the District at the DC offices next to Union Station. All the paperwork that I filled out for our company SlapHappy Ventures, LCC has the DC gov logo and it is a local business. We also pay our taxes in the district. So if you want to make assumptions, I suggest you have the facts to back it up. He,he,he--so many bitter people in DC. In May why don't you pick up a copy of my new book The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide...it will cure that sourness right up!
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
Hey look, Marcos may not know how to make a website, but he's got sass. You're so sassy, I totally want to buy your crappy shirts now.
Just because you pay taxes here it doesn't make your t-shirts attractive, nor does it make your website have the right contact information. It just means your customers pay a bunch more tax. Mabye you should spend less time monitoring comments on blogs and more time making your website not suck.
From the linked blog - THERE'S A MONSTER TRUCK RALLY THIS WEEKEND AT THE MCI CENTER?
Yo... Chill people. The man says he wants to improve. Let him. Submit an idea and see if he runs with it. You don't like his t-shirts, don't buy them.
You are right Come on, our site and shirts suck. They suck so much that tons of people are checking it out and buying the shirts. You sure got me there. We are the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. Thank god you are here to make me realize it. What would the world be like without people like you...hmmmmm...maybe...better? Thank you for making me see the light!
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
You are right Beamtendave. If people like them, they can buy them, if not, then no need to visit out site. thanks.
Marcos Salazar
Co-owner
DistrictTees.com
I find it sad that DistrictTees had to succumb to the internet pastime of spamming comment sections of websites to get traffic to their site (no matter how poor a design it may have). As much as I love local businesses and watching them become little capitalists, it hurts to watch them whore themselves out in a manner such as this.
Also check out my traffic boosting website, make $400 bucks a month with no money down! I only get minor referral bonus, kekeke ^___^
How can you be "spamming the comment section" when entire effing post is about your business?
And to "Come On," I submit that YOU are sloppy and unattractive. So there.
the "friends don't let friends wear their collar up" shirt is grammatically incorrect. collar should be plural. it's a parallelism error. let's at least mock the fratty-frat types in a grammatically correct way!
Sorry I'm sooooo late to the party. I work a lot of nights. Mostly I'd just like to say:
Holy Crap. These are just t-shirts. Let's all take a deep breath.
Here's a little info for folks who can't seem to calmly discuss the state of our site. Our web design program is the Eazy-Bake Oven of design programs. We thought that was best because neither of us know what we're doing when it comes to designing a web page, and instead of spending money we don't have on a professional web design and passing the cost along to our customers, we did it ourselves. Maybe we'll redo it in the future when we have the time and money.
Suprisingly enough, neither Marcos nor I are fashionistas, nor do we have a background in graphic design. So we did the best we could with what we have. I've been staring at these designs for a while now, so I have no idea if they're funny or interesting or whatever anymore. I'm numb to them. I appreciate the fresh points of view. These aren't all the ideas we have. They're just the ones we could create a decent design for.
To sum up: We have limited web and graphic designs skills. We know this. But we decided not to let that stop us from trying something interesting, and exciting. We had an idea. We didn't see anyone else doing it. We set forth. The end.
One last thing. In regards to the critique that our site lacks "street cred", I don't know what that means. How can a web site have DC Street cred? The folks who set the standard for "street cred" live somewhere in actual street and probably don't have internet access. So I guess when it comes to being down with the hood, I'm straight our of luck. Word.
Monster.
Trucks.
Monstertrucks.