A Q&A with Meaningless T-Shirts

Fast becoming one of our favourite blogs in the office, Meaningless T-shirts will either make you wee a little from laughter, or offend you if you happen to design t-shirts for the high street. We chatted to Joe Madden, the brains behind it, who kindly answered a few questions for us…

How did Meaningless T-Shirts start and what’s it all about?

Meaningless T-Shirts is a blog dedicated to documenting and dissecting the worldwide phenomenon of clothing emblazoned with banal and nonsensical slogans. “Chicago Sports 1975”, “Beach Team 202”, that kind of shit. Sometimes I try to find hidden meaning in such garments, and if that fails, I just royally rip the piss right out of them.  It started because I was out in London’s glittering West End one Saturday afternoon and I was suddenly overwhelmed by the number of meaningless T-shirts all around me, both in shops and on people. So the next day I returned to London’s glittering West End armed with a camera, and started snapping away…

Do you think that you should give shit t-shirts a chance?
You could argue that meaningless T-shirts aren’t really worth getting all wound up about, but if we tolerate them, what’s next? Immigrant paedophiles injecting miaow-miaow into the Queen, that’s what.

Who is your hero and what would you do if you met them and they were wearing a meaningless crappy t-shirt?
My hero is Chief Wiggum from off The Simpsons, and I doubt they make T-shirts big enough for his impressively spherical frame.

In your professional opinion, who is the biggest cause for the amount of meaningless tees on the high street?
I fully believe that there is a rogue demon spirit called Karazzobuub who is churning out meaningless T-shirt designs on Adobe Illustrator from his loft-style apartment in Hell. I’d like to see anyone prove otherwise.

(image taken from meaninglesstshirts.com)

Do you realise that you will be judged for ever more on your choice of apparel?
Does the Bible not teach us, “Let he who is without a T-shirt that says ‘Hawaii Surf Contest 1986’ on it cast the first stone”?

What for you, makes a darn fine t-shirt?
I’m a proper crack-fiend for T-shirts, I own quite a lot of them (and barely any other clothes), but in general I go for white T-shirts with unusual, one-colour designs (that sounds pretty OCD-specific, I know) that’ve clearly been thought about and worked on for longer than 15 minutes.  I also occasionally make my own T-shirts (SELF-PROMOTION: buy one at distantgeese.com), which is probably about as unwise and hypocritical as it gets.

Tell us about Distant Geese.
It’s Meaningless T-Shirts’ far-less-popular older-sister site, and basically a dumping ground for my comics and doodlings, which mostly read like the babblings of the crazy man at the bus-stop who’s talking to a Barbie with no head. Meaningless T-Shirts has pretty universal appeal, but Distant Geese is a bit of a gammy weirdo that just upsets most people. Saying that: give it a go!

What’s the t-shirt that holds the most memories for you and why?
I’ve got a Stussy tee with Arabic-looking writing on it that’s accompanied me on many an adventure – both ace and shit – over the last half-decade. It’s properly dying now, but I can’t bring myself to put it out of its misery. I might have to actually bury it and say a few misty-eyed words.

Have you thought that you could possibly start a trend for people wearing meaningless t-shirts, just because they think they’re ironically meaningless?
Jesus, I think at that point the universe would probably implode in on itself. To be honest, there’s probably a St. Martins student ironically wearing a Primark “Football Goal 1972” sweatshirt on Brick Lane right now.

Is there a brand that stands out who continually make great t-shirts?
Uniqlo knock out the odd winner; Lazy Oaf have done some nice designs for people way younger than me; T-Shirt Party use photos really well; and some of the African Apparel stuff is pretty funny (especially their “Bob Marley” tee, not that I’d ever dare wear it). Also: H&M are fantastic! Not really. They’re worse than a million Hitlers.

You should try and get a publishing deal for a Meaningless T-Shirts, you know.
People keep telling me that. I better get a move on before some two-bob hack does a knock-off called ‘Nonsensical Sweatshirts LOL!!!’ and makes 80 million quid off it and I have to kill myself with tablets.

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