Vintage Vantage, an online vintage T-shirt boutique, recently designed a shirt that was marketed and sold at Urban Outfitters emblazoned with the slogan "Voting is for Old People."
John Foster-Keddie, the Yale graduate who created www.VintageVantage.com explained how at first his customers loved the shirts.
"All of our shirts share a sarcastic, irrelevant sense of humor and our customers have come to expect that! It wasn't until the shirt hit Urban Outfitters, and was taken out of context by overzealous media types unfamiliar with our website that people started flipping out," Keddie said.
Keddie went on to say that the shirt was originally created to be funny and designed to open up an interesting dialogue about young people and voting.
However, many people did not seem to get the joke. www.MTVNews.com reported that some felt the shirt was anti-voting propaganda and were afraid that kids who not old enough to vote would not understand the irony and would always disrespect the idea of voting.
Keddie reportedly released a statement to MTV News that read in part, "we fully understand how this shirt might be misinterpreted and we appreciate the arguments that the shirt has raised."
Yet other websites like www.CNSNews.com reported that some people are reading even more into the shirt's meaning.
www.Punkvoter.com sent a letter to Urban Outfitter Chairman Richard Hayne demanding that Urban Outfitters stop selling the T-shirt.
The letter suggested that perhaps Hayne had an ulterior motive in allowing his retail chain to sell the "Voting is for Old People" T-shirt.
"It is public knowledge that you contribute to the Republican Party. Could this be the motivation behind your anti-vote strategy to suppress the youth you have so much influence over?" Punkvoter.com said.
Katie Horridge, a sophomore at Meremac Community College came across the T-shirt while browsing Urban Outfitters website last February. Although she did not think much of the shirt at the time, she said it was not clear to her if it was meant to be ironic or not.
In response to all the negative response regarding the shirt, Keddie offered to give the T-shirts away free to anyone who promised to send a picture of themselves wearing this shirt outside of their voting booth on November 2.
"This is definitely a marketing tool to get young people to vote. I think giving people something fun and random to do while at the polls will encourage people to get out there," Keddie said.
Due to the overwhelming demand for the free shirt, VintageVantage.com now has to charge $9.50 for the material and the shipping cost, which is still over 50 percent off its original price.
To view the T-shirt that has caused so much controversy go to www.vintagevantage.com.
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