

T-Shirt Hell Claims It Will Shut Doors After One Too Many Hate Emails - pclark
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/26/t-shirt-hell-shuts-doors-after-one-too-many-hate-emails/

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Zarathu
I don't particularly understand why he would care if he gets hate mail or not.

Actually, scratch that. Hate mail means he's achieving his goal, ergo making
more money.

Clearly, this is trickery. Trickery, I say.

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scott_s
I imagine it takes a toll. It's easy to say "Don't listen to them, they don't
get it." It's harder to actually ignore constant hate mail.

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eli
Yeah, but for someone explicitly trying to push the limits of good taste?
Isn't offending people the whole point?

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fallentimes
Agreed. And most the time the people that are offended are the outraged people
who always like to be outraged about something.

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Goronmon
I find it kind of distressing that I can easily imagine someone resorting to
physical violence against someone wearing (or in this case, making) t-shirts
slogans they don't agree with.

Also, it's cool to see someone who cares enough about their business to be
willing to forego any monetary gain by selling it off to someone else.

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eli
If you really want to push the envelope all the time AND you can't deal with
mild email-based criticism then yes, you should shut down.

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akd
there's mild email-based criticism, and then there's "Your wife's name is XXXX
and she works at ______. Shut down your site or else."

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jasonlbaptiste
Somehow I was expecting to see a shirt that says:

"Ghandi Wouldn't Fucking Trade Places With You Or Matt Maroon"

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unalone
I never looked at T-Shirt Hell before this, but they've got some _incredible_
ones.

"Slavery gets shit done"

"Women are like parking spots. They're whores and liars."

I wish I'd known about this store before. These are hilarious.

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dgabriel
Eh. I think they're childish. This guy enables real-world trolls, and somehow
is surprised that people respond negatively.

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unalone
It's not trolling, it's shock. When you wear something unexpected, then it's a
lot funnier and more effective. Nowadays, offense is the most shocking thing
there is.

Not to say this is as good as A Modest Proposal, but wouldn't you say that
suggesting people in Ireland sell babies as food is a similar thing? I
wouldn't call that trolling. I'd call it satire.

EDIT: The reason it _isn't_ trolling is that you have to put your name behind
it. One of the essential elements of trolling is that what you say can't be
tied back to you whatsoever. The minute you say it with your own name, it's
not trolling. It's an offensive statement made by an actual person.

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dgabriel
Hey, wear whatever you want, sell whatever t-shirt you want, no sweat off my
back. This kind of humor is cheap, and possibly hurtful. If you're cool with
that, it's your business.

I've never heard that trolling had to be anonymous by definition, and I've
been kicking around the internet for 15 years or so. Trolls aim to be
deliberately disruptive, and if you're in public wearing a shirt with any of
the slogans on TSH, then you are aiming to be disruptive. One reaps what one
sows.

ps - I'm watching our points go up & down depending on who agrees with us.
It's kind of amusing.

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fallentimes
I thought anonymity was why trolling was/is so prevalent.

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dgabriel
Anonymity may be _why_ it's so prevalent on the internet, but it's not a
prerequisite.

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unalone
What's the difference between trolling and satire, then? Where's it stop
becoming a social statement and start becoming a case of merely provoking
argument thoughtlessly?

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furyg3
genius marketing campaign

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icey
Indeed - this seems like the first time I've read a "We're closing down" press
release that included the fact that they were bringing back MORE products for
sale.

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nihilocrat
Oh hey, did you hear? The McRib is back!

 _...again!_

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sanj
Simply making offensive statements doesn't count as social commentary.

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alecco
Some of the shirts are _very_ clever.

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mattmcknight
If there were a TechCrunch that covered TechCrunch they would dump out a
headline focusing on the closer- "Arrington announces he is going to shut down
TechCrunch".

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TomHod
Surely the best 'fuck you' would be to sell for millions. Closing the company
will make the people who hate him happy - I say he's staying open...

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aantix
Is Zed Shaw his ghost writer?

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iuguy
Zed Shaw wouldn't write something like that, it'd be a tenth of the size and
filled with 60% more expletives and claims of awesomeness.

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jcl
...along with some amount of actual awesomeness.

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nanijoe
...don't forget to add the "middle finger to the rails comumnity"

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iuguy
Zed Shaw is so awesome he has two middle fingers on his left hand. Both of
them have 'Rails' tatooed on them.

That's why he plays left handed guitar.

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hat
I think the guy should have just hired a few people to go through his hate
email daily and respond to everything.

The other half of the website's ingenuity could have been intelligent
responses to senseless bantering.

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noonespecial
He announced one too many times how much money he had made. To me this just
screams "I didn't make very much money." Which I'm going to hazard a guess is
the real reason he's shutting down.

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edw519
What's next, "I'm Not an Asshole if I Blog that I'm Not an Asshole"?

