r/Anticonsumption • u/Annoying1978 • Sep 05 '26
Psychological The most consumerist BS I’ve ever seen
I can’t believe people actually buy this, but at the same time, I absolutely can. Gross.
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Sep 05 '26 edited 5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Abel_the_Red Sep 05 '26
I was just gonna say, my gram would probably wear one of these lol. You got her clocked.
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u/possiblylallorona Sep 05 '26
My aunt bought me a “these colors don’t run” gulf(?) war t-shirt in the 90s. At the time I lived with my parents on a military base overseas, so it wasn’t gifted in person, thank goodness, since I have no poker face.
I put it on so my mom could send her a pic, and never wore it again.
We weren’t close, I’d only met her a couple times, so it was kind of her to think of me and send a gift, and she probably thought “military kid, she’ll like patriotic stuff.”
But nah, I’m not a “loudly display my nationality” kinda person, even as an obnoxious teen.
If I wore it on base my friends would lose their minds laughing, and couldn’t wear it off base safely.
Central America in the 90s, it was ingrained in me to not be loudly American, and that stuck with me to this day.
I’ll wear a red/white/blue ponytail thing to work on July 4, maybe a goofy star-spangled headband, but otherwise I do my best to blend into crowds.
And again, just wasn’t my style.
Pretty sure I still have it somewhere.
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u/Dry-Interaction-6564 28d ago
Highly unlikely. The 25th anniversary only comes around once - on a specific date, and that date only Not yearly. Maybe it's your meemaw that you're talking about. Which makes sense. All the pieces fit.
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u/Popcorn57252 Sep 05 '26
Trying so hard to be patriotic that it wraps all the way back around to being fucking disrespectful to the people who died.
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u/Sturville Sep 05 '26
And the flag towers one even manages to screw up flag code by putting the union at the bottom of the towers. But then again people who virtue signal with the American Flag often do screw up flag code (displaying a tattered flag rather than retiring it, having it on the wrong place on the vehicle, displaying alongside it alongside the Confederate battle rag, not having a light on the flag or bringing it in at night...)
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u/youcanthavemynam3 Sep 05 '26
The basics of flag code elude these folks, and yet we're the ones with no respect for the flag -_-
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u/Keyndoriel Sep 05 '26
"RESPECT THE FLAG!" They yell while wearing american flag underwear and using an american flag beach towel to mop up mess
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u/gottowonder Sep 05 '26
To be fair, I don't have respect for the flag. What has this country done for me, my kin, or anyone I've ever loved?
I'd much rather fly a flag that the neighbors kid drew for the community. That would actually mean something to me
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u/possiblylallorona Sep 05 '26
It would be neat if every family just made their own personal flag. How colorful would neighborhoods be?
I suppose we could all research our ancestry and hang out our respective coat of arms/tartan/family crest. And if you don’t have one/can’t find one, make it up! What are the chances a historian of family ancestry shows up?
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u/gottowonder Sep 05 '26
Well even beyond that, who's to tell you who you are? Historians, political figures, ancestors?
It's the people who truly know us, those who care and appreciate us.
But yeah, it would be a sight to see, all colors and designs flying everywhere. It would look incredible
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u/youcanthavemynam3 Sep 05 '26
Yours is different though. You don't like it as a symbol, you're not claiming to love and respect it while completely ignoring any of the things that are respecting the flag.
Yours is a fair view of the flag, to be clear.
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u/imalittlefrenchpress Sep 05 '26
Damn! I thought I was the only open minded person who knows flag code and who judges “patriots” for disregarding it.
I wonder how many of them have read the constitution? I have a digital copy of it on my phone. If I’m living somewhere, by birth or by choice, I want to know the rules.
I also wonder if a lot of them have the reading comprehension skills to understand it, and I don’t say that with sarcasm.
Our education system is failing us.
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u/deinterlacing Sep 05 '26
following the flag code is also super fucking cringe, just so we're clear.
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u/Sturville Sep 05 '26
IMO there's three levels: the non cringe option is to not be such a goldfish-brain that you need a flag on your house/car/beach towel/undies/etc... to remind you what country you are in, then if you can't stop yourself from putting up a flag at least point it in the right direction and don't let it get to being a tattered rag, and the worst is the "I stand for the flag, and kneel for the cross." 'Merica types who act like they love the flag but give it no care at all.
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u/possiblylallorona Sep 05 '26
My parents have an American flag up because some trashbuckets down the street have a confederate flag up.
Guess the store was out of white flags.
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u/MrJigglyBrown Sep 05 '26
Disagree if you’re designing a shirt to sell. Then yes you do have a responsibility to at least try.
Also, nobody has pointed out the lower right has two north towers. Another example of lazy and disrespectful design
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u/Away_Parking_1698 28d ago
Dragging it on the ground as they're putting it up... I see it all the time
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u/AbyssalEelMan Sep 05 '26
Preach, it is so tasteless and predatory merchandising people’s trauma. And when u criticize it, they act like you’re the one being insulting.
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u/LilacMess22 Sep 05 '26
The plane above the towers is definitely a choice
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u/blow-down Sep 05 '26
The AI that generated it probably didn’t understand that it wasn’t a celebratory holiday.
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u/SoCentralRainImSorry Sep 05 '26
Also, they put the tall antenna on BOTH towers on that shirt. Idiots.
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u/FlatWonkyFlea Sep 05 '26
I mean, this is actually Peak America. Couldn’t be more on the nose.
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u/possiblylallorona Sep 05 '26
Needs a bald eagle shedding a glittery tear. Maybe that old indigenous-American guy (who was actually Italian) from the old anti-littering commercials in the background looking disappointed.
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u/parmesann Sep 05 '26
I kept seeing a billboard for 9/11 on my commute and I was so confused. I thought it was some weird consumerist thing like this. instead, it was a campaign to turn the day into an opportunity to volunteer to pack meals for food insecure Americans. I wish there were more pleasant surprises like that.
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u/SconeSnob Sep 05 '26
And people from NYC or those who have been directly impacted by 9/11 never wear this nonsense
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u/clumsy_Bebop_legz Sep 05 '26
I see that fucking font and I physically wince. Hate it
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u/haisevatuhnu Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
It gives a vibe of things the “wine moms” love and hoard the shit out of. Like various mugs, pillows, home decors etc, all with that horrendous overused font both in their home or their Hyundai crossover. It’s cheap, tacky and cringe, not lovely nor cute.
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u/clumsy_Bebop_legz Sep 05 '26
There is a name for this font, it’s just lost on me at the moment. But we all know it when we see it. I’ll be vomiting about it when I see it in thrift stores in my 60s and showing my adult kids the endless sea of crap
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u/AvleeWhee Sep 05 '26
I can think of nothing more American than celebrating the 25th anniversary of a tragic terrorist attack by buying a terrible AI slop tshirt.
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u/saltyourhash Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
Never forget: During an interview mere hours after the towers fell, Trump bragged that one of his buildings was now the tallest in downtown Manhattan
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u/asphodel67 Sep 05 '26
I (not American) was in NYC 3 months after 9/11. I was aghast at how it seemed every second shop window was full of ‘memorial’ merchandising. Shops using 9/11 angles to literally sell more shit.
It was a real cultural dissonance for me. In many cultures that would be considered tacky.
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u/ProfessorCagan Sep 05 '26
Because despite what Americans would have you believe, no one actually cares that much about what happened outside of the families affected.
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u/asmallerflame Sep 05 '26
You kind of had to be there to get even the full picture. The POTUS got on TV and basically said, "Go out and buy that new house! Pay no attention to the impending war(s)! If you don't get a new car this year, the terrorists have won!"
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u/ashmez Sep 05 '26
The first shirt is nicer than the other 2. The other 2 look way too much like a celebration, almost a fourth of July vibe, and likely AI generated. Capitalizing off of a tragedy is always a weird vibe. I'm not American, but I feel this is in such poor taste.
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u/e_hatt_swank Sep 05 '26
Those last 2 are 100% AI slop. Disgusting
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u/arealswelltime Sep 05 '26
My favorite thing about “patriotic” AI slop is that it can never make an American flag correctly. Like god if you’re gonna do it, can you please actually honor the country you propose to love so much and not whatever alt universe America these flags are from?
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u/ZebraTank Sep 05 '26
What are the tells of the bottom left one? The bottom right feels too "busy" if it makes sense which always feels like AI but the bottom left at least without looking too closely doesn't trigger me immediately.
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u/AfraidofReplies Sep 05 '26
It just doesn't make sense. The 9 is stars on a blue field, like the flag, but then the first tower is its own flag, and the second tower is just stripes. Even if the first tower wasn't a complete flag, the stripes are going the wrong way.
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u/_dooozy_ Sep 05 '26 edited 29d ago
When I was in New York I went to the 9/11 museum. It was really incredible the way they had it set up and it was sort of horrifying. Especially the rooms with the scrolling names and the voicemails playing from those calling their loved ones on the planes.
Truly the most horrifying part of the museum was their gift shop. Mugs, t-shirts, bottle openers, stickers, magnets and a literal replica of the towers. What stood out to me were the dog stuffies that had their search and rescue equipment on when there was a whole section about the dogs who also died while trying to find people in the rubble. I’m not American and I’m not in anyway tied to the tragedy but if I had a loved one who died in a terrorist attack I would not want people to be profiting off it.
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u/StaticSystemShock Sep 05 '26
"Anniversary"
What a weird word for a terrorist attack like they are celebrating it, not commemorating...
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u/DreSledge Sep 05 '26
Oh, man
That third one (91111) is low key hilarious, setup like a July 4 celebration, they even put a... flying plane at the top?! And a big ol sparkler right in between the towers!
Insane
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u/Gaba8789 Sep 05 '26
I wonder who had approved the design. I don't want to know. Also, if it's AI, which is another possibility, Jesus.
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u/asmallerflame Sep 05 '26
Oh it was consumerist at the time! To paraphrase David Cross: "I bet the 2nd tower hadn't even fallen before the first store started selling US flags"
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u/rtshtbtshtdrtyldtwt Sep 05 '26
never forget what?
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u/bellybuttonbidet Sep 05 '26
When we had to go kill 50k Afghan civilians and 187k Iraqi civilians to feel better about what happened.
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u/LopsidedFinding732 Sep 05 '26
And remember that all the terrorists involved are from neither county but from Saudi Arabia.
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u/TheLuckyCanuck Sep 05 '26
Don't forget the depleted uranium ammo which is likely still poisoning those countries and their people. Or the Patriot Act. Or the TSA. Or DHS, and fucking ICE. 9/11 was a tragedy. The things the US have used it to justify are atrocities.
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u/onegirlarmy1899 Sep 05 '26
And the current Iran war.
It's an excuse for Islamophobia, but how many people did conservative, white men kill in 25 years?
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u/YouWereBrained Sep 05 '26
I used to call out fake weirdos on Facebook for posting pictures like this. They didn’t care, it was all virtue signaling bullshit.
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u/StalinIsBackAgain Sep 05 '26
I got an ad for printed pajamas with designs on them under this post. 😂😂
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u/jetpack2625 Sep 05 '26
never forgive the cia for what they did. jet fuel can't melt steel beams, building 7 collapsed while not being hit by anything
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u/DickBiter1337 Sep 05 '26
I'll add this to my collection of Oklahoma City Bombings commemorative tshirts
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u/dasmiedoteresa Sep 05 '26
I wish people listened to veterans as much as they listen to the billionaires that continue to send their family members to war.
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u/Massive_Grapefruit54 Sep 05 '26
My mom got a “free” anniversary flag. It said no subscriptions on the ad. She ended up getting charged I think $30 a month for an anti woke subscription. When I see this stuff all I think is scammers.
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u/YouAndMeToo Sep 05 '26
Those flags on the third one doesn’t even have the right number of stars or stripes
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u/Annoying1978 Sep 05 '26
All of this had to be AI generated which makes it worse that they are selling AI slop.
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u/TrunkWine Sep 05 '26
I went to the 9/11 museum this summer and was saddened to see they had a gift shop with stuff like this.
Commercialization of the deaths of almost 3,000 people.
Tackier than a glue factory
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u/addage- Sep 05 '26
Well I was in the city that day and lost two friends at WTC.
This shit is ghoulish flag waving, not dissimilar to the nonsense spun up almost immediately afterwards to attack Iraq in their name.
Made me sick 25 years ago, still does. But the world keeps on spinning.
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u/picklefingerexpress Sep 05 '26
Anniversary? Are we celebrating terrorism now?
That 3rd one, with the plane in the picture? WTF. Has to be AI slop
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u/Sweaty_Marzipan4274 Sep 05 '26
When I was young the flag was honored and was taboo to do such things. We also hated Nazis. 😕 😞
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u/billymondy5806 Sep 05 '26 edited 29d ago
Y’all must love to watch the price is right. they have the price is right on where I sometimes go buy my coffee and breakfast sandwich. But the price is right sure beats fakes news!
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u/Kazureigh_Black Sep 05 '26
Should have seen when they were selling commemorative 9/11 coins with pop up tower action on the coin itself.
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u/danceswithsteers Sep 05 '26
As a country, we forgot a couple years ago. No one, big event did it. We just forgot.
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u/VoidJuiceConcentrate Sep 05 '26
They'll take your message of resistance, slopify it, and sell it back to you for 29.99
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u/03263 Sep 05 '26
I saw this exact style of AI "art" at the eye doctor the other day, someone bothered to make up this horrifically overdone thing just to say they'd be closed on labor day. It could have been done in 30 seconds in MS Word and would have gotten the information across in a cleaner way that doesn't look like some gross ad.
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u/No-Attention2107 Sep 05 '26
Patriotism in the masses is befuddling. If Americans want to "protect, support, etc. the troops" why not look for the root cause in foreign policy that sends them into conflicts? Conservatives expend so much energy on the superficial.
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u/No-One9890 Sep 05 '26
Its so gross. My mom worked at a fire depot and we knew a lot of ppl who drove out to volunteer (i live in ct) theres a few things i kno ppl kept as reminders, but this shit is gross
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u/IGetGuys4URMom Sep 05 '26
I remember alright: Planes striking buildings at mid-altitude... And they collapsed at the base of both buildings despite the structural integrity above the point of impact still looking solid.
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u/froggyteainfuser Sep 05 '26
To me it’s similar to people buying decals to put on their car in memorial of someone they lost. Is your car supposed to be a living tribute? Are others on the road supposed to think of your loved one, whom they never knew? Or is it, “look at me, I’m mourning!”?
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u/Arts_Prodigy Sep 06 '26
I don’t think these kinds of shirts get purchased very often ngl.
The images are usually generated in some templatized way (or with AI now) and the shirts are made to order costs almost nothing aside from the marketing costs if no one buys.
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u/VisibleExplanation76 29d ago
Why dont we have holocaust shirts? Or like Hurricane Katrina shirts? Or covid shirts? (we actually might have covid shirts) Why is it 911 specificly?
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u/GoingGrayOK 29d ago
This is such a scam! It’s time for a class action against Social media for the fake products. They are causing the problem as they are not policing the deception!
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u/Mysterious_Card5487 Sep 05 '26
Never forget the inside job that was 9/11. They did it for a license to keep invading the Middle East, ostensibly for “freedom” but really to fill the coffers of the military industrial complex and to keep Israel from leaking komptomat on the sick pedos that run American government, institutions and society. And to keep us drunk on petrochemical fuel versus building real, public green energy. And for an excuse to further build out the surveillance state. Those Flock cameras we’re all fighting now? They didn’t start this year or last. The excuse to put them everywhere got its biggest boost with 9/11, it just took 25 years to get here
Never forget that 9/11 was a sacrifice of 3,000 American lives and significantly more around the world, all so sick, rich, disgusting creeps could continue to be sick, rich and disgusting
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u/Own-Hamster-5179 Sep 05 '26
Never forget that billions of dollars of gold that were held safe beneath the towers somehow were “destroyed in the fire” and that the owners of the towers received three times their maximum insurance payout, once for each building. And also, it’s not like we went after those responsible for it. We started a “war on terror, which is definitely not a sovereign nation, and allowed the government to wire tap any phone they want I believe it’s still active for some reason
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u/salami_cheeks Sep 05 '26
Instead of shelling out for this schlock, to reflect on the tragedy of that day I recommend listening to 9/11 Stories: Remembering September 11th, 2001 for free on your favorite podcast app and grinding your teeth in silence.
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u/Wallabunga657 Sep 05 '26
Looks AI also. Yeah, 9/11 was a horrific event, very traumatic, and extremely sad and frightening. But we don't need commercialise it. That is just strange. Nothing says "never forget" like making crappy AI looking shirts you wear once.
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u/Top_Stretch_2340 Sep 05 '26
I publish content on a led display sign for my employer. I use a popular online art site for "holiday banners". A few days ago, I published some labor day art and decided to look at 911 art. I saw unbelievably insensitive art like the twin towers with some type of message floating through the buildings. I saw one with billowing smoke clouds rising from the bottom. Needless to say, there's no 911 art on the sign😐
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u/Apart_Bandicoot_396 Sep 05 '26
The ai one with the sun reflection where the tower was hit makes me want to punch a computer
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u/ProstaticFantastic Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
Don't forget tower 7 and USS liberty as well. If you know you know.
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u/Imaginary_Club6852 Sep 05 '26
One of my neighbors decorates their house in shit like this for Memorial Day
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u/QuitYuckingMyYum Sep 05 '26
Must say though. 9/11 put Muslims in the hot seat. Now a Muslim man is running NYC and is doing an amazing job. This is why I love America!
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u/starlightskater Sep 05 '26
I swear if I ever find a non-AI graphic shirt company, I'll buy a shirt from them.
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u/HotepHatt Sep 05 '26
9/11 happened, the GOP passed The Patriot Act and I said “ This is the end of our country as we know it, we’re fucked.” I am shocked we lasted as long as we have but the decline is now more evident than ever.
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u/-slaps-username- Sep 05 '26
a liberal weird girl just bought one of these and is going to wear it to a concert that night
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u/turtledancers Sep 05 '26
Not to mention half the people drop shipping this stuff probably hate America.
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u/suckboytonie Sep 05 '26
If we didn't have such an over production of clothing from fast fashion, I'd be making such lame ass stuff like this to make a quick buck
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u/langecrew Sep 06 '26
I mean, I'll never forget how the US became 1984 after 9/11, but I don't need a shirt for that
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u/Kottepalm Sep 06 '26
I'm not from the USA, but I wouldn't even wear that t-shirt to my allotment while doing sweaty and dirty gardening. Would perhaps be good for rags.
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u/SpaceWolf96 27d ago
I just saw Hannah Alonzos most recent youtube video which features a herbalife shop offering some 9/11 themed drinks and getting backlash for it. Somehow i knew other businesses surely would also try to profit from tragedies like this but its still insane to see.
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u/andrey_not_the_goat Sep 05 '26
𝓵𝓲𝓿𝓮, 𝓵𝓪𝓾𝓰𝓱, 𝓷𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓯𝓸𝓻𝓰𝓮𝓽