How meme shirts are illegally sold every day on sites like Amazon, Redbubble, and Etsy.
Memeshirts.org is tackling the “meme on a shirt” debacle…
Though some meme shirts are completely illegal, “netstalgic” themed marketplaces are something people are actually searching for on Google every month! Memes are so much fun, but our team at memeshirts.org were wondering if meme shirts are 1. legal. and 2. something people actually will purchase as a gift for their loved ones this Christmas Season? We know that people love memes, that is why they are shared on social media in huge numbers. In this article I am going to address the legality issues surrounding huge “print-on-demand” businesses like Amazon, and how they use memes to amass great wealth at the expense of the original artists.
You will find out how this big problem can be solved by simply forming an organization with the mission to serve the original artist: Memeshirts.org!
We know you love internet sensations like this hilarious “crack kid”. That is the title of the meme. Crack kid is actually the ex-viner known as Nathan Moszyk. He is just a kid, who came up with a crazy character called “Crack Kid”, and made it famous with the app Vine.
What if you were able to do something good with this meme created by young Nathan? Memes have always been viewed by most “Karens” as pointless, and stupid. But what if we could put memes to great use?
I am of course talking about immortalizing a meme by putting it on a shirt.
Or a mug. A Hoodie. Masks are all the rage right now…
Giving the perfect Christmas gift, letting your love ones get a hysterical laugh and kick out of a great meme on a shirt. Wouldn’t that be noble? For a meme, isn’t the “meme on a shirt” route a hill worth dying on? We thought so.
Giving gifts is a good old American holiday. It is called Christmas. And we think the best damn way to immortalize a hilarious meme, like the crack kid above, is to put him on a shirt. Put him on a lot of things, and sell them as gifts, in order to set a smile on everyone’s face when the original artists is sent a great royalty, of course.
When your loved one opens that gift on Christmas day… And sees this crack kid boy staring at them, on a shirt. 🤣
These meme shirts make better gifts than a serious fashion statement!
What if you could create a fashion statement with meme themed apparel? I mean, once the coronavirus is beheaded, of course. We will begin to see everyone back in school! We’d like to see every kid going back to school wearing a beautiful meme shirt.
It is quite striking when you see a meme on a shirt. You don’t expect it, and it tricks your eyes for a second. Your brains says, “Am I on facebook right now?” or “Am I staring at a computer?”. They are always an instant conversational piece. We are willing to bet that you will get more compliments on your new meme shirt, than any other item in your wardrobe!
These people know exactly what we are talking about! They are wearing memes as fashion! I wonder where they got those shirts? As gifts very likely. The overwhelming majority of people purchase meme shirts because they make the best gag gift EVER.
The infectious experience of putting on that meme shirt only to make people laugh as they compliment the shirt.
However, our team spent just 5 seconds on each image. Let us be clear here: our team went to Placeit.net, and started creating easy mockups by downloading a meme off of Google, and just placing it on different products. Our point is simple, it is so easy to pirate any meme on a shirt.
So, whats next? The next thing to do is to make sure this is all legal, correct?
I mean, weed is legal right?
Not exactly….
Yes, we know it is fashionable, and we love the idea of putting memes on clothing. But, is it the right, and legal idea at the end of the day?
Putting a meme on a shirt is just as illegal as smoking that sweet dank in Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Kansas, Wyoming, and Idaho.
Come on guys! You need to get with the picture on weed, anyway, I digress.
Yes, putting a meme on a shirt and selling it without credit and royalty is actually quite illegal! And sleazy, actually. At least when I light up my bong, I am not blatantly stealing someones artwork in order to profit from it! Selling anything without permission is already bad, but to do it without credit/royalty to the original creator is just plain wrong!
Yet, this illegal “meme on a shirt” activity happens every day on some of the biggest marketplaces listed below.
That is why we have created this post. To educate the market on meme related clothing, and whether you are buying from a reputable source that credits the original artist, and shares the wealth of their creation.
We will be rating each of these marketplaces by four different criteria:
- Are they legal? For that we will check if Trollface is being printed illegally.
- Are they are good resources? Are they just a print-on-demand side hustle?
- Are they an actual clothing line or brand?
- If they actually fit into meme culture.
Im going to answer these four questions, and they will appear in this format
You will know that I am answering #2, because this is second
You can easy know this is #3, because its third
#4, and so on…
I think you get the picture of what we mean! Hopefully, because with that, lets start! We will get started with the largest titan on the list, Amazon.
1. Amazon: CEO of Print-on-demand Meme Shirts
I began my search by looking to see if Amazon was a credible source for anything “meme on a shirt” related. They are letting people sell these memes on different products. Which is definitely illegal.
Amazon is known as CEO of e-commerse. Of course they are on this list, and rightfully so because they are the easiest resource by far to find a great shirt. Or anything for that matter. They are a juggernaut, that will never be stopped and they know this. I was recently in Seattle, and I visited the area of the city that Amazon practically owns. It was wild. Bezos is by far one of the smartest individuals for doing what he has done. But has it been “good on him!” to do it?
Even amazon lets a few copy-written items end up on a shirt and sold, without letting the original artist make a dime. How can they? They have millions of transactions going on at a single hour.
This is NOT legal!
Huge resource… of illegal products
Not a clothing line, purely a side hustles from print on demand
What culture doesn’t amazon fit, 90% of Americans use it.
It is also very relatable to pretty much anyone. So, ya, Amazon has to fit the mold on our rating system for staying relevant to even meme culture. Really the only reason I would stay away is the ethical reasons.
It is safe to say that I will not be buying any meme shirts as Christmas gifts on Amazon. Let’s see where else to buy meme shirts.
2. Etsy: A 50 year old woodcarver’s dream
It is a very similar case for “meme on a shirt” related items on Etsy.
Another Goliath in e-commerce, this is the site that has made my mother a great income selling her handmade necklaces. Etsy is an online marketplace for handmade goods. They feed you awesome traffic, while giving you an easy to setup store. And therefore this is all user generated products that are simply not coming from the source.
Any merchant on Etsy use some print on demand company like Printful to easily link their store to it and begin making money off of it! This is so illegal, it really should be removed from Etsy. For instance, in our example of the Trollface, Carlos the artist should be making a great royalty- yet they are assuredly not.
Listing Trollface products on Etsy is not legal.
Huge resource… of illegal meme products
Not a clothing line, purely side hustles from print on demand
Kind of punk rock to DIY, so it is kind of meme culture.
Etsy really does fit the mold for the meme culture, though. It is a great resource if you are a punk rock DIY kind of type, that can make projects and sell them. It really is a great side hustle for many great Americans like my mom.
However, it is likely just some 13 year old kid who has built some meme page on social media, and has decided he can fund his hentai addiction by listing meme shirts on Etsy.
It is safe to say that I will not be buying any meme shirts as Christmas gifts on Etsy. Let see if Redbubble is a good source?
3. Redbubble: Likely a 13 year olds side hustle
Of course we are going to be looking to see if Redbubble is a credible source for anything “meme on a shirt” related.
Just like all of our examples so far, memes are saturated on Redbubble, and they are all 100% using copy written artwork to profit without giving any credit to the original artist. We do not understand how Redbubble allows this on their website, however here is proof.
No its not legal to list any deviantART post you find on Redbubble
Huge resource… of illegal meme products
No clothing lines here, just a print on demand giant.
Redbubble is about art, which we love- so it does fit meme culture
Redbubble is a really cool website for selling your art on different mediums like t-shirts and even pillows and shower curtins. So, of course, we love Redbubble. However, they also do not really meet our requirements of being legal. There are so many users on redbubble that are just reselling someone elses art. Because, we are forced to believe that the majority of these trollface products are actually listed by the original owner and author of that artwork.
Now, instead of using print-on-demand, and putting it up on your own store, anyone can list their items up on Redbubble. Redbubble acts as the actual maker and shipper of the product, which is great, because you know they are going produce a consistent product each time.
Just like Amazon, the reviews of Redbubble are all immaculate. So of course they have the quality under their belt. But, again, these meme shirts are not being sold to benefit any of the original artists. You see, this is just a huge print on demand giant, and I don’t believe it is a very credible or legal place to buy a meme on a shirt.
Redbubble will not be my source this year for meme shirt Christmas gifts. Lets see the next option.
4. Spreadshirt: Yet another curated marketplace.
I had a hunch that “meme on a shirt” related materials were at home on Spreadshirt. and I was right…
No its not legal
The best source of illegal meme products.
This is puely print on demand
This probably fits meme culture the best out of all our criminal websites.
Looking at the actual stores of these shirts, it looks like Carlos is not the owner of all of these dsigns. It is safe to say that spreadshirt is helping people break the law. They are very similar to the above locations to find a meme on a shirt.
Spreadshirt is a place where anyone can log in and create a shirt right from the home page. This is yet another print-on-demand listing site, that allows anyone to illegally put any deviantart they find on line and put it on a shirt.
I am about to just give up at this point.
It is safe to say that I will not be buying any meme shirts as Christmas gifts on Spreadshirt.
5. Memeshirts.org
We make sure every meme creator gets paid, and a credit.
Perfectly LEGAL products. Growing resource!
We are a clothing line! Our shirts are ring spun, and memes are placed by hand.
We eat, sleep, and breath Memes! Meme culture is what we serve!
At memeshirts.org, we put every meme on a shirt, by hand. As we said above, putting someones art on a shirt and selling it is sleazy. However, we offer the credit and royalty to the original artist! We hold a dollar amount in escrow for them, until we finally contact them. And then once we have their paypal email, we deposit it every week for them. Every article of clothing benefits the original artist. We believe this is a noble hill to die on, for any meme.
We put memes on clothing while crediting the artist, and sending them a check via paypal each week! We also give a percentage of the clothing to a charity of the month. So, you can feel good about displaying that meme on your shirt!
We make meme shirts, meme mugs, meme sweatshirts, meme hoodies, and etc. This way the original artist can make a larger royalty, and you can even raise huge charitable donations!
That was our goal at https://memeshirts.org.
Because we saw a problem that needed to be fixed. Tons of marketplaces and online stores were selling these shirts, and profiting completely illegally, without giving anything back to the original artist! Big names like Amazon and Redbubble, are letting their merchants profit off of these memes, without a royalty given to the original artists. As artists ourselves, we thought that was very wrong!
The truth is, most of these memes are nostalgic. They are fun to read and to rate against each other. We have even made a way to rate memes, similar to Zuck’s facemash, called MemesMash. There are tons of ways to make memes useful to society, but the most favorited is cheap thrills and entertainment.It is safe to say that this is a righteous and noble cause we have taken on at memeshirts.org, this holiday season.
I hope you enjoyed our post about meme related clothing, and where you can find it legally and safely. Thank you for reading our post, we wanted to reward those of you who are still reading this post, at its end. Here is some bonus content, about our up and coming MemeMash rating system!
MemesMash a rating system for meme culture
At memeshirts.org, we believe marketing should be something the customer loves and provides entertainment, just like memes! We have built a really fun program for rating memes against each other. It has become a great past-time on your phone!
In 2003, famously Mark Zuckerberg published a similar program for rating pictures of young women at Harvard University called FacesMash. We have built the same damn tool for memes. Have fun reddit!
Our concept is a little less degrading to women :) Mark.
We know that our demographic of customer love consuming memes on a daily basis. They are the Redditers, they discuss and share memes. MemesMash 2.0 will incorporate a fun “wishlist” of different products based on the memes they have rated as winners. We believe this is a win win for all.
We are excited to be releasing memeshirts.org to the general public. It is exciting to be doing something good with memes.
Click here to start rating memes, or making a meme shirt today.
