It isn’t enough to stay up on the news anymore. If you’re woke, you have to wear it.
In what might be the most ambitious, if not the most ridiculous, crossover of all time, the New York Times teamed up with Japanese luxury brand Sacai to weave what they’re branding as the Truth Cotton Tee. The fashion statement is part of a campaign to “champion the role of independent journalism in holding power accountable to the facts.”
The imported cotton crewneck comes in black and white. It is stocked in sizes extra-small through large. It is available at Saks Fifth Avenue for a cool $300.
At first glance, that kind of cash seems excessive. And it is. The New Yorker and the Atlantic offer tote bags at a fraction of the cost, after all, and they usually with a subscription throw in for good measure. But the New York Times tee delivers something different than the rest of the various journalism swag. It tells the rest of the shoppers at Whole Foods and the rest of the class at SoulCycle that you aren’t just a Gray Lady fanboy. You are a member of the #Resistance.
Maybe you don’t have a byline. Maybe you do, and that makes this fashion choice even worse because the Truth Cotton Tee has that obnoxious slogan emblazoned on the front: “Truth. It’s more important now than ever.”
And that’s the kind of self-congratulatory vitriol that turns so many off from our profession. The truth mattered three years ago just as much as it does now. The world’s most expensive T-shirt motto implies that it meant less during the last eight years.
Consumers who care more about the truth than about letting everyone else know that they care about the truth could spend that $300 on three all access annual subscriptions to the New York Times. Better yet, that money could be spent on one subscription to the Wall Street Journal.
Facts matter, even if you make a big show about them to everyone.
