Shirt.Woot

Some where, in an undisclosed location

Him: Ven mi amor. Vamos a ir a mi habitación especial.

Her: Oooh, I love the way you talk! It's so cute...But I think that I've heard this type of thing before. What did you say you name was again?

Him: Algunos dicen que tienen muchos nombres, pero mienten! No soy más que un hombre que da a todos lo que lo que mi amor.

Her: Okay, but I have to say that I usually make it a rule to not go with a guy that still lives with his mother. You sure that she can't hear us in the basement?

Him: (Vaguely Spanish accent) Si, mi amor. Now please...let's go to my special room...

Her: What's this "special" room you keep talking about, and hey where's that sexy accent?

Him: Just one peek in this room and you will forget your cares...

Door creaks slowly open

Her: What the...Is the furniture in this room made of...penguin and turtle shirts? And it smells like rodent poo in here. Wait a minute! I've heard of you from my girlfriends.

Reaches over and rips off man's mustache

Her: You're that guy who hits on me every week! I can't believe I was fooled by you just adding a mustache and that fake accent! I'm so out of here! Hey, wait...why are you putting on that mangy dress?

Him: (creaky old woman's voice) You insulted my dear son in the most meanest of ways. What makes you think that you can leave now...alive? Squirrel army, attack!

Her:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Ldyandrea wrote:I'd be willing to bet if they added up all of the revenues generated from shirt designs that include all of those things, they'd immediately reject it as a completely counterproductive move. Those shirts get votes, and they make money. End of story.

Slogan shirts get votes, sell well, and make money. And are banned in almost every derby, even those allowing text, because woot has decided that they value creativity of design ahead of being just another site with a lot of slogan shirts.

Video game characters sell well, and are banned more often then not in the derby.

Really, this argument doesn't hold water. Woot bans plenty of things from derbies that would sell well because they are looking for originality and creativity. When they see something being overused, it gets banned for awhile.

A LOL'ed out loud when I read this writeup. Brilliant on the Woot side. I admit, I was angry and one of the haters this week in the derby, but after much thought and reflection, I decided I don't care. If you can get away with it, and pay some rent in the process, more power to you. Not a buy for me but great writeup. Way to erase any sour feelings.

CapSea wrote:I will bet you respect that it does not sell out.

Sorry dude, I think you lost your respect... that's got to hurt.

Assassin15 wrote:I only scanned through the previous comments, but did anyone else notice that they took Imposter off the list of Links? When did that happen?

Possibly because people who weren't aware of the Imposter shirt bought that one too and then BAMMO! It's now moved out of the danger zone, this time without the usual Monday drama.

Man, I'm actually relatively pissed that right when I clicked buy now it sold out

Well, I daresay this has been one of the more entertaining forums as of late. If Wooters get this riled up over T-shirt designs, I wonder what will happen when weapons.woot launches?

Now when do I get my "white bunny in a snowstorm" shirt?

NooOOO! Want!!

Darquis wrote:On a more serious note, woot approves (I assume) the write ups. If woot is of the opinion that this shirt is too similar or derivative of Impostor...why the f didn't they just reject it to begin with?

*Points to the big yellow "SOLD OUT" on screen...*

derkis wrote:
Is ramyb a talented artist? No (sorry, his abilities as a draftsman are lackluster, but that's another post entirely).

Does ramyb produce creative designs, or demonstrate any qualities of a captial-A Artist? No.

I have to disagree on these points, at least partially. Ramy *has* shown the ability to create some interesting, good-looking and stylish designs that I've seen (not that I have the time to point them out just now, maybe later). But those are almost always a secondary effort to the cutesy bunnies, penguins, etc. I've posted a couple of times encouraging him to focus more on the more creative stuff, but of course he's going to follow the money and as long as his horde keeps voting for his designs he's going to keep winning, and his shirts will keep printing. Welcome to democracy.

It's disappointing. There are a lot of very creative shirts in this week's derby, at least one of which will have to wait for the next Double-Take to get the recognition it deserves.

The write-up actually seems not so funny to me. If Woot can't reject something they think is so similar that it warrants this type of critique, there is something wrong with their ability to make or enforce their rules and there is no point to their supposed lamentation regarding the democratic process.

I understand that it's frustrating to have to prohibit each individual cute animal every derby, but there are a lot of options. Change the way people can vote, for instance. Instead, Woot whines and collects money on it, and it's hard to respect that. Directly insulting an artist like this isn't classy, no matter how much he may deserve it.

That said, I'll still buy the shirts I like that are without penguins, bunnies, turtles and dinosaurs. So carry on, I suppose.

Meowmeowmeow?

woolysockofdoom wrote:For all future derbies, woot will be forced to enforce these new rules.

• No text, numbers, garble or anything resembling a written code, language or similar artificial communication.
  
• No Mario, Star Wars, Star Trek, Starscream or any other pop culture references (including that one).
  
• No bunnies, kittens, giraffes, penguins, turtles, zebras or any other cute animal.
  
• Nothing cute, or even close to being cute. Ever.
  
• No David Bowie.
  

Can we add two for the next derby?

• No Black shirts
  
• No Gray Shirts
  

As similar as this is in appearance to Imposter, it's actually the opposite of it.

Imposter is about conformity, whereas this is about individuality. So don't buy both unless you have a split personality. ;)

I am glad this shirt sold out. The haters will still hate, but 99 percent of them would never have a shirt up on shirt.woot anyway.

As always, awesome write-up Woot!. That's what you get for leaving penguins off the rules this derby! :p Aaannnnddd.... SOLD OUT!

I wonder if things would be different if there was a downvote/bury option. Or if this democracy adopts an electoral college. That would be something.

Does Woot ever sell shrunken headphones?

derkis wrote:Are ramyb's designs both successful and profitable? Undeniably so.

He can keep doing what he's doing, but ramyb is to shirt.woot what Thomas Kinkade is to fine art.

I was thinking Kanye West, personally. But I'm with you.

*sigh*

easysailor wrote:I am glad this shirt sold out. The haters will still hate, but 99 percent of them would never have a shirt up on shirt.woot anyway.

That's right. Because only artists are allowed to critique art.

Of course.

MyStro023 wrote:Can we add two for the next derby?

• No Black shirts
  
• No Gray Shirts
  

Seriously, like 95% of submissions feel like they are on one of those base colors. Half of my Woot Shirts are on black. I've now told myself that the Tee has to be amazing for me to buy a black shirt here again.

Is it just me or are the black shirts slightly smaller than the rest? It seems like my gray shirts are a little bigger than normal and my black ones are a little more snug than normal. Either that or I only wear the black shirts on my fat days.

nice to see people, in the spirit of the shirt and accompanying write-up, posting eerily similar comments to other comments posted about eerily similar other shirts.

ragemonkey wrote:nice to see people, in the spirit of the shirt and accompanying write-up, posting eerily similar comments to other comments posted about eerily similar other shirts.

No that's just normal. =D

Why the second i go to buy it... it sells out?

kitcatbrat wrote:Is it just me or are the black shirts slightly smaller than the rest? It seems like my gray shirts are a little bigger than normal and my black ones are a little more snug than normal. Either that or I only wear the black shirts on my fat days.

they tell me black is very slimming.

Paradox55 wrote:Comparing ramyb to my beloved Patriots is...is...just take a knife and stab me through the heart Woot.

Well, I live in Boston, and given SpyGate and the design theft apparent in many ramyb/sekioku designs, it seems like a reasonable (although probably not specifically intended) comparison...

Let's have Unpublished Artists as a derby. You can only submit a design if you have never had a shirt.woot printed.

Fantastic write up!

Congrats Woot/Ramyb on the sell out.

I probably missed this being covered in the threads, but when/why did Woot remove the link to Imposter off of the "Links" thingie? It was there when I looked this morning.

LINKS:
Melting Defenses
School
<--Where did link to Imposter go?

First I thought they pulled it because seki was listed as the submitter of Imposter even though they announced it was a collab. But then if you look at Imposter, its links point to at least 1 Ramy submitted shirt.

and as for this...

profbrendan wrote:So you do a google search for "punk penguin" (the two prevailing elements in this design), and look what happens to come up:



This is also for sale, as a shirt, from this site. Aside from the whole Imposter angle, duzzat qualify as "similar shirts exist"?

That shirt you linked to is totally different. In addition to Ramy giving them all headphones, the mohawked penguin is standing second from the right. In Ramy's shirt, mohawked penguin is clearly standing in the center. Also, Ramy's shirt is colorized.

swankyspoon wrote:Fantastic write up!

I like it but ya, I already have one. Which made it into a Baltimore paper! Penguin party style!

http://thedailyrecord.com/2011/01/24/photo-of-the-day-penguin-party/

Woot, what hypocrites. We will make fun of the artist, act annoyed that he wins all the time, while privately enjoying that he consistently sells out and brings you tons of money every time.

Personally, I'm just sad because it's sold out and I didn't get mine.

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/dare_2_be_different.gif

http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2010/259/4/d/penguins_rawk_by_nekya-d2yukb4.png

And as shown above


How is this NOT copyright infringement? Ridiculous.

easysailor wrote:I am glad this shirt sold out. The haters will still hate, but 99 percent of them would never have a shirt up on shirt.woot anyway.

That is like saying people can't have a political opinion because they won't ever run for office.

This is honest criticism for the artist; get a new schtick already. How many times have we seen these penguins? I mean, what, is this some kind of collectors series?

midgerock wrote:Oh a woot veto would have worked. Veto says "no" to something. Woot has the final say on what they print. As to Ramyb stuff selling, well that's it.

My point is, Woot very easily could have rejected this shirt for "similar shirts exist" (see the write-up), but they chose not to. Why would giving them a veto power have changed this outcome?

Ldyandrea wrote:As a longtime and frequent purchaser, I can tell you I've bought quite a few of Ramyb's designs, and I don't buy any shirt unless I really like it and think it's wearable. Just because something is commercially popular shouldn't de-legitimize it.

That's really not what I said, I'm sorry if you took it as such. Any purchase from a unique user is perfectly legitimate. I classified shirt purchases from non-unique users for the purposes of extra-voting accounts as "otherwise." That goes for any shirt sold.

dubdubdub wrote:That shirt you linked to is totally different. In addition to Ramy giving them all headphones, the mohawked penguin is standing second from the right. In Ramy's shirt, mohawked penguin is clearly standing in the center. Also, Ramy's shirt is colorized.

Really? The position of the penguins makes it dissimilar? That's silly. Conceptually, they aren't very different at all.

Group of penguins, one's got a mohawk 'cause he's cool. That's the concept.

Ramy adding headphones and using color does not differentiate that. If different colors and minor details made a design unique enough to pass muster, the overwhelming majority of shirts rejected due to the "Similar Shirts Exist" rule would be in the clear. Just look at the "World Nomination" debacle for proof.

I'll even go out on a limb and say that I doubt Ramy intentionally ripped off this particular design (from anyone other than himself, that is). But frankly, that doesn't matter. The rejection of a shirt for the reason of similarity hinges only on whether a closely related design already exists, not if the artist intended to consciously rip something off. (Legally, that's something else entirely.) Looking at the design I referenced, it's not like it's a mega-popular shirt all over the web, but the fact is that it existed previous to Ramy's design. I think most artists would agree with me that a good practice when designing shirts is to first do a simple Google search and see if your idea has been done already. If it has, well, move on to something else.

NightGhost wrote:Well, I daresay this has been one of the more entertaining forums as of late. If Wooters get this riled up over T-shirt designs, I wonder what will happen when weapons.woot launches?

Now when do I get my "white bunny in a snowstorm" shirt?

As soon as woot lifts the ban on Star Wars and I get my Wampa in a snowstorm on Hoth shirt. :P

profbrendan wrote:Really? The position of the penguins makes it dissimilar? That's silly. Conceptually, they aren't very different at all.

Group of penguins, one's got a mohawk 'cause he's cool. That's the concept.

I forgot to use the sarcasm tags when I posted that... Didn't you notice the first part of my post was the tin hat conspiracy theory stuffs asking why Woot felt the need to remove the link to Imposter from the list of links on the main page? I'm with you. This whole thing has been a long running sad sad joke, which is why I only shop woot once every 5 or 6 months anymore.

I've only in the last two weeks started looking at the derbies again because a friend of mine has been putting in entries. I saw the Imposter Revisited entry (and that it won) and that for some reason Woot changed the list of links to remove Imposter so I felt like sharing my two cents with woot since I've not been sharing any dollars with them lately.

dubdubdub wrote:I forgot to use the sarcasm tags when I posted that... Didn't you notice the first part of my post was the tin hat conspiracy theory stuffs asking why Woot felt the need to remove the link to Imposter from the list of links on the main page? I'm with you. This whole thing has been a long running sad sad joke, which is why I only shop woot once every 5 or 6 months anymore.

I've only in the last two weeks started looking at the derbies again because a friend of mine has been putting in entries. I saw the Imposter Revisited entry (and that it won) and that for some reason Woot changed the list of links to remove Imposter so I felt like sharing my two cents with woot since I've not been sharing any dollars with them lately.

Heh, whoops, sorry 'bout that. Got a little overzealous.

I'll do a save-face move and just say that's a stock response for anyone who feels like defending this design, or ramy's somewhat questionable practices. :D

thebaldwinboy wrote:Let's have Unpublished Artists as a derby. You can only submit a design if you have never had a shirt.woot printed.

How about Untalented Non-Artists Day?

I have some great ideas...