Thursday, June 5, 2014

Just For Fun: All Your Nerdy T-shirts Are Belong to Me

I have never been shy about discussing my nerdy t-shirt addiction on social media. I probably should have, because now I've got quite a few people who enable me by sending links to amazing t-shirts. Regardless, it occurred to me recently that I've never shared the true depth of my addiction. Time for me to fess up.

I did a count recently: I'm up to 31 t-shirts. Yes, you read that correctly. I know people who have more, but I also know the restraint I've shown. What's more, I've gotten rid of t-shirts in the past by giving them away either to friends or charity. If I were to share all of my shirts, that would be a forever long post. Instead, I've narrowed it down to five of my favorites:

For me, this t-shirt, Running Rhino, embodies but makes light of the size acceptance movement. I don't wear it that often since I pick my t-shirts based on whomever I'm going to be around that day. There's the joke about unicorns still being around, but they gained some weight and turned gray. But rhinoceroses are fantastic in their own right. As are we all.

I've had this Bloom County t-shirt since the 1980s. I was/am a huge fan of Berkeley Breathed's work, and when I was still in elementary school I saved up my allowance and sent money with the form in the back of the book (that I had also bought with my own money) to buy this.

I have FOUR Doctor Who t-shirts, and another on the way. I do have a not-small obsession with that show, and have even been accused by a number of friends of actually being a Time Lord in disguise, so when one obsession meets another the results are predictable.

My nerdy t-shirt isn't just about mainstream nerd. I also have a deep love of fairy tales, and Little Red Riding Hood is one of my favorite stories in that genre. This t-shirt reminds me of Roald Dahl's version, which is one of the best.

This is definitely my favorite of my recent acquisitions. With my deep love of both Firefly and Lilo & Stitch, this shirt could have been made just for me.

Beyond these, most of my fandoms are represented in my t-shirt collection. Lots of Calvin & Hobbes, Star Trek, Star Wars, Supernatural, video games, 80s cartoons, bands I love, and so on. I've promised myself I'm going to refrain from more t-shirt purchases for a while - I do have an addiction, after all. But the last time I made that promise to myself, it only lasted 6 months. So we'll see how it goes.

If you're of a similar disposition, my favorite places to shop for t-shirts are (in no order other than how I remembered them):

  • Threadless. The Little Red Riding Hood shirt came from them. As did Running Rhino.
  • RedBubble. More pricey than other places, but sometimes you just gotta have a t-shirt. I've got a "Ravenclaw Quidditch Team Captain" shirt from them that I wear way too often.
  • Woot. They have daily shirts for cheap ($12) and most of their past designs are available for a little bit more ($15-ish).
  • TeeFury. Another daily shirt place. So dangerous because you can't wait and make your decision in a couple of days, because it will be too late.

I know there are tons of others, but I'm going to stop there. How about you? Do you have a nerdy shirt collection? If I missed your favorite place, feel free to add it in the comments section.

5 comments:

  1. I follow Qwertee, which is a daily t-shirt place. Their designs are available for 48 hours ($12 the first day and $14 the second day). The fandoms represented don't generally apply to me, as my fandoms tend toward the literary, but there have been a couple shirts I just could not resist (1984 and Vogon poetry).

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  2. I bought one of my favorite joke shirts via a link to its specific page on a vendor's site, but I never checked out the rest of that vendor's site until later. It turned out they also sell a lot of absolutely horrible no-good brotastic sexist/racist shite. I haz a sad.

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  3. cafe press has my vote for nerdy T's got all my kids a t each and while one got I mustache you a question but I shall shave it for later! the two theirs went for Big Bang references! and much fun was had by all!

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  4. ThinkGeek and Yetee in addition to all of the above!

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