Imitation, Flattery, and All That Jazz…
Life June 27th, 2005 |If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I suppose I should consider myself flattered — either that, or there’s a rather surprising coincidence going on. Update: Coincidence! See the end of this post for more…
In October of 2003, I dreamed up my “I’m just here to get laid” t-shirt and put it up on CafePress, where it’s sold a whopping…um…five. Maybe.
One of the things about CafePress I’m not terribly fond of is that they don’t offer white-on-black merchandise, so for my birthday on May 3rd of this year, I had a white-on-black version of the shirt custom made. Since then, I’ve worn it around town from time to time, both to the Vogue and to the major festivals (Folklife, Fremont Solstice, and Pride), where it’s gotten a lot of good laughs.
Earlier today, thanks to a comment in Brandon’s LiveJournal (where I’m described very accurately and amusingly as “the kilt wearing skinny dude”) that North Shore Shirts (an offshoot of the local weblog Then You Discover) is selling a shirt that looks very familiar (aside from using a different font and ending with an ellipsis rather than a period). According to the store weblog, their shirt was introduced on May 30th of this year.
Admittedly, my first reaction was to get a little peeved — but then, I’m also running on about three hours of sleep today, and my temper can flare up pretty easily — but wasn’t too long before I just thought it was funny. Now, it is entirely possible that it’s nothing more than a remarkable coincidence that another Seattle weblogger would come up with a near-duplicate idea…but if it isn’t a coincidence, then I’ll settle for flattery.
Besides — they obviously have the ability to actually create and sell these things without resorting to CafePress or the like, which I don’t have the ability to do. A pity, too…after the number of compliments I’ve gotten on the shirt, I was starting to poke around various shirt printing sites to see what it would take to make a batch to sell myself. Looks like North Shore beat me to it!
So — if you think the shirt is funny, and would be satisfied with a fair-to-middling quality black-on-white CafePress version, pick one up here and I’ll get a whole dollar (ooooohhhhh…) for each one ordered. On the other hand, if you’d prefer a high-quality (I’m assuming) white-on-black version (and cheaper than CafePress, to boot), you can pick it up from North Shore Shirts, and I’ll get…um…the satisfaction of helping them out with their sales. Yeah. That’s it! 
(Oh, and North Shore…if this is all coincidence, then I like your sense of humor. If it isn’t coincidence, is there any chance I could get an “idea by…” or “inspired by…” link on that shirt’s page?)
Update: Word from Mikey at North Shore is that, as I said was very possible, it’s just a coincidence. She also pointed out that there are at least two other variations of the idea floating around out there.
Guess I’m not as creative as I’d like to think.
Hopefully there’s no hard feelings left behind (I did recommend their shirts over mine, after all)…
[See also: Just a coincidence | Cards, anyone? | I’m too sexy for my blog | But is it a specific ‘here’, or an existential ‘here’? | Manly Pink: The photos ]
8 Responses to “Imitation, Flattery, and All That Jazz…”
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Michael Hanscom
Ryan Waddell
Michelle
Curt
Jess
June 27th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
Man, I so want one of those shirts… but black on white just doesn’t do it for me (nor does Cafepress’ shipping prices to Canada, if I recall) and the North Shore fellas don’t ship to Canada
:( 
June 27th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Tell ya what — if you can PayPal me the money for the shirt plus a couple dollars for shipping, I’ll order one from North Shore and send it up your way. It can’t be that expensive!
Let me know if you want to do this, I need to check my PayPal account and make sure that I’ve got the right e-mail and addy set up in there after changing servers anyway.
June 27th, 2005 at 7:07 pm
Weird, I thought North Shore was in Vancouver, B.C…
June 27th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
I took the design I made for Cafepress (“your failed business model is not my problem”) and sent it to Giant Robot Printing, since he offered better quality merch and could do something other than B&W.
Not quite the same, but I haven’t made a dime on either outlet (I didn’t add a markup to the Cafepress stuff, since I was just making another’s idea reality).
June 28th, 2005 at 5:46 pm
Just a coincidence
I’ve updated my original post to reflect this, but just to be perfectly clear, it does appear that North Shore’s “I’m just here to get laid…” shirt is nothing more than a coincidence, as I knew was possible. From what I can tell, my I’m Too Sexy… s…
June 28th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
Mikey is a girl….
June 28th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
Details, details.
Fixed that…thanks!
June 29th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
Reminds me of an odd story:
A few years ago I dated this girl who made these t-shirts for her site that were black and had POSEUR written on the front in white (the definition was on the back). A couple years later I ran into a friend at a show and he was wearing a black t-shirt with POSEUR written in red on the front but nothing on the back. I asked him about it and he said he had seen someone wearing something similar but could never figure out where to get one, so he made that one himself. At that point I told him I was probably the one he had seen wearing it.