Were T-Shirts the First Social Media Platform?
You have dozens. Some people pay a stupid amount of money for them. They come in all colours, sizes and designs. You may continue to wear your favourite one even after it has holes in it. Sometimes you fall in love with one. What started as a basic undergarment is now an item that sells over 2 billion units globally in a year. In fact, by 2027 the custom T-shirt printing market size is estimated to be worth $6.9 BILLION dollars…that’s right Austin Powers, BILLIONS!!!
Another multi-billion dollar industry we all know is social media. And in this post, I will uncover the roots that connect the two.
From the Navy to the Silver Screen: The T-Shirt’s Evolution
In a 2018 article in the Calgary Herald, Gord Ferguson, professor emeritus at ACAD, said: “In order for something to be an art experience it has to provoke a response or ask a question or challenge you in some way or another. A T-shirt can totally do that.”
The T-Shirt was first mentioned in a media form by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1920 novel ‘This Side of Paradise’. From there, In that era, Navy men were often seen wearing and working in their white t-shirts; and after World War II, it wasn’t uncommon to see veterans wearing a t-shirt tucked into their trousers… then came the revolution in the form of Marlon Brando and James Dean.
Brando was first wearing a white t-shirt in his role as Stanley Kowalski in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, followed a few years later by James Dean in ‘Rebel Without A Cause’. The power of the media was proven by the skyrocketing sales of T-shirts to the youth of the day.
Around the same time, someone realized they could print on the garment. It is said that the first promotional T-shirt was made for Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican running for President in the US in 1948 — he handed out “Dew It with Dewey” T-shirts to kids! Dewey ended up losing to Truman… but, maybe Harry had nicer t-shirts?
Fast forward to the 1960’s and 70’s. Political unrest. Rock and Roll. Hippie counterculture. Wait a minute… does that sound a little bit like what’s going on right now?
Band t-shirts, Vietnam protest messaging, and screen printing made printed T-shirts more mainstream than ever before and the New York Times put it out there that the T-shirt has become ‘the medium for a message’
OK, that’s it for history Mr. Hand. Now think back to your first T-shirt you really loved as a kid or a teen. I had a baseball T-shirt from The Who concert…loved that shirt. Going back further, I had a real Canadian gem of a T-shirt with a moose named Kooky Canooky…bring back that brand!!! Insert picture from the Eaton’s 1973 catalog:
There’s a Medium, There’s a Message, and It’s Social
Nowadays we have countless platforms that allow us to put forth our message — from Facebook to LinkedIn to TikTok. But back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, we didn’t have the luxury of the internet or social media to show off our new T-shirt or tie-dye hoodie. We just wore them. The more people we saw, the more people saw our message! Take a walk at the CNE, thousands of people saw your shirt, your message, your statement, your favourite band, your anti-war protest slogan, or whatever you happened to be wearing.
Granted, the impact was not as large; not remotely… but what other options did we have to socially project our messages? Unless you were a celebrity of some sort with access to mass media platforms of the time — print, tv, radio — you had no way of ‘sharing’ your message. No way of seeing if anyone ‘liked’ what you were showing off. You could ‘post’ your message but only on your chest or back!
Even going back to the late 90’s, I was in Vegas at a trade show and saw a dude wearing the greatest T-shirt ever…I searched and searched for it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. But the fact that to this day, I still remember that shirt or message, shows you the power of the t-shirt as a medium for your message.
Nowadays, I’d go on IG or FB to share my message…or if I was a lot younger, I’d dance it out on Tik Tok or post it on my Snapchat. While I was doing any of that, I’d still be wearing my favourite T-shirt of the day.
T-Shirts are Bridging the Generational Divide
You guys know by now that I am not a BOOMER…but rather a Gen X guy who loves to chill, work, sleep, play and do pretty much anything I can, in a T-shirt. I’ve been told, “Once you’re over 50 it’s not appropriate to wear a logo marked t-shirt; it’s not professional”. Well, I say F that BS. Wear what you want. Be who you want. I still love wearing my Johnny Cash, Beatles, or AC/DC T-shirts and will continue to look for ideas that I like. I admit I am more prone to the Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg school of thought with a very simple and similar wardrobe, but still, feel the urge to don that band shirt or some other cool logo marked T I have in my collection once in a while.
Back in the late 80’s I had an awesome T-shirt I picked up at a cool shop in Ann Arbour (love that town — Go Blue!) — it was a tribute shirt to The Flintstones with all the characters partaking in some herbal remedies and it said ‘Yabba Dabba Doobie’… instant classic. I had many people ask me for the shirt or where I got it. That thing disintegrated when I was done wearing it.
Today we use the power of the internet to get our brands, products, and messages out to the masses. Whether it’s a B2B or B2C campaign, there is a media strategy that will work for you. We can now measure our results. We can see the ROI on the investment of our media dollars. We can data mine info and do analyses until our eyes go googly from looking at our screens too long. I work with a great team of digital professionals and this is what we do. We live and breathe it daily. We strive to learn more and stay up on new topics within the digital realm.
And you know what? We all do it in the comfort of our T-shirts. So, thank you F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas E. Dewey, Marlon Brando, James Dean, and all you Boomers who used to be hippies… we love our T-shirts. Seems everyone does. The medium for the message. The T-shirt will live on forever.
