I'm With Stupid ---->

April 21, 2008 12:45 PM

The self-proclaimed "most trusted name in news", CNN, has launched its beta t-shirt store. Finally, for $15 plus shipping and tax you can buy direct from CNN branded t-shirts with such wonderful headlines as: "Dad mistakes son for prey, shoots" and "Free prom dresses honor girl's memory." If that's not enough, yes, you can share your new purchase on Facebook, and grab your 15 minutes of fame by posting pictures of yourself in your newly acquired apparel on CNN's quasi-news ireport system (link not yet live, but I'm waiting with much anticipation).

Let's just hope that CNN gives credit where credit is due - to the Weekly World News, forerunner in t-shirt headlines. Just remember CNN, don't start ripping off other people's images and photoshopping in aliens shaking hands with Bill Clinton to bolster t-shirt sales, or you'll get sued.

posted by Muddler (71 comments total)

My favorite.
posted by mecran01 at 12:49 PM on April 21

So, no one will buy a real one, right? They're planning on only selling goofy fake ones?
..

Didn't CNN used to be a trusted name for news?
posted by graventy at 12:52 PM on April 21

See, it's funny because one girl was killed in a car crash delivering prom dresses, and another guy accidentally shot and killed his 8-year-old son two days ago! Get it?
posted by designbot at 12:56 PM on April 21 [8 favorites]

Meh. CNN's got to do a lot of running to catch up with the New York Post New York Post.
posted by ardgedee at 12:56 PM on April 21

Do they have Bat Boy shirts too?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:00 PM on April 21

In case it isn't apparent to everyone from mecran01's link, the t-shirt logo generator is easily compromised, all you have to do is insert your own 'headline' in to the URL. 5 favorites says this will be down within the hour.
posted by onalark at 1:04 PM on April 21

Adding to the horribleness of this idea, someone is rewriting the headlines after they are deemed "t-shirt-worthy."

Free prom dresses
Dad shoots son by mistake
CNN fails at internet
posted by designbot at 1:05 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

for example
posted by onalark at 1:07 PM on April 21

I saw these this morning and laughed a good hearty laugh, then turned on NPR. That URL hack is the greatest!
posted by Science! at 1:08 PM on April 21

Is this really a frequently asked question?
"I took my CNN shirt on vacation and I have great pictures. Where can I send them?"
posted by smackfu at 1:12 PM on April 21

What's bad is that "YOU NEED A HEART TO LIVE" (all caps) doesn't fit on a shirt. What's worse is that you can't add a shirt with a hacked headline to the shopping cart anyway.
posted by cobra libre at 1:16 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]

Needs a Richard Quest meth/sextoy in boot/ rope tied around genitals t-shirt to get my Visa out of my pocket.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:21 PM on April 21

Here's a headline from today's New York Daily News that I totally misread. After all, I would call my honeymoon audible. Extremely audible.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:22 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]

Aw, it really is too bad you can't buy a custom hax t-shirt, otherwise "IDIOT SPENDS MONEY ON NEEDLESS BRANDED MERCHANDISE" would make for a great CNN Financial headline shirt.
posted by Spatch at 1:34 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

CNN headlines have always been dumb, as shown by WTFCNN?
posted by graventy at 1:49 PM on April 21

I Just Saw It On CNN!
posted by rusty at 1:51 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

If I was on the verge of suicide, this might put me over the top.
posted by ryanhealy at 1:57 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]

Good lord. This one is actually real, and so is odd placed out of context on a t-shirt that it's almost worth buying.
posted by rusty at 2:01 PM on April 21

Fertility science marches on

Domestic tragedy in Arkansas
posted by cortex at 2:08 PM on April 21

yawn...
posted by quonsar at 2:12 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

INVISIBLE SCODY
posted by cortex at 2:17 PM on April 21

on the presidential elections
posted by zippy at 2:21 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]

No potential for abuse here at all.
posted by Leon-arto at 2:27 PM on April 21

I think this would be really cool for metafilter.
posted by empath at 2:28 PM on April 21

This. Is. Hilarious.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 2:29 PM on April 21

We should make a pony request.
posted by Artw at 2:39 PM on April 21

I cannot stop giggling at zippy's. Oh CNN, you glorious fools. Probably should order quick before they fix it.
posted by cashman at 2:39 PM on April 21

Ah, the classics. Do they make shoes?
posted by Artw at 2:46 PM on April 21

I wish you could order the fake ones.
posted by anomie at 2:50 PM on April 21

Convenient and guaranteed
posted by ardgedee at 2:53 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

I would* buy this, if they let me.






*would not
posted by 23skidoo at 2:56 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

PepCNN Blue.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:01 PM on April 21

CNN: The most busted name in news.
posted by etaoin at 3:04 PM on April 21

I don't get it. Is CNN really trying to become The Onion?

Sometimes I don't know if Tom Lehrer was right when he said satire was obsolete, or if he hadn't seen anything yet.
posted by namespan at 3:10 PM on April 21

You know, it's oddly refreshing to see the term "beta" in a context where it actually refers to buggy, pre-release content.
posted by lekvar at 3:17 PM on April 21

Damnit, I came here to post this and saw I was beaten to the punch in the very first comment.

Well done, sir, well done.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 3:29 PM on April 21

I'd prefer t-shirts featuring news ticker headlines from CNNNN.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:34 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

Cortex's Favorite T-Shirt.
posted by ericb at 3:47 PM on April 21

You should really put it into headline format, though.
posted by cortex at 3:50 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]

Beans, Beans, Good for the Heart.
posted by ericb at 3:55 PM on April 21

ericb: considering that beans are not gendered and may therefore be thought of as sexually fluid, transgender or genderqueer, your phrase "a plate of fucking beans" contains an implicit normative heterosexual monogamist agenda that some might find hegemonic & inappropriate.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:10 PM on April 21 [4 favorites]

Best CNN headline ever (first one). I'm taking suggestions for how to read it.
posted by wemayfreeze at 4:20 PM on April 21

wemayfreeze: was that a serious question, or a setup for a joke?

the actual story was that the coach of the pakistan cricket team was found dead in his hotel room shortly after the team had been knocked out of the cricket world cup. the death was suspicious, so the local police took the DNA of the team as part of their investigation.

it does read nicely, though, in a Terror Couple Kill Colonel kind of way.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:38 PM on April 21

I especially love that you can modify the return_uri parameter and it doesn't bat an eye. I can't wait until someone sends one of my computer unsavvy relatives a link to a CNN t-shirt with a link to a malicious website. Most trusted name in news indeed.
posted by saraswati at 4:45 PM on April 21

Case in point (this link isn't malicious, but you can see how it could be)

Why don't companies think before they put stuff on the internet?
posted by saraswati at 4:55 PM on April 21

I want one with my favorite quote by CNN's Kyra Phillips:

"Doctor, does he understand why this war took place? Has he talked about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the meaning. Does he understand it?'"
posted by Auden at 4:59 PM on April 21

Anderson Cooper is my future ex-husband.
posted by ao4047 at 5:15 PM on April 21

So true.
posted by sparkletone at 5:30 PM on April 21

Ubu, I'm still lost. Is DNA being used as a verb here? That's the only way I can make sense of it, but, c'mon, DNA? Verb? Maybe someone could diagram it for me.

Murder cops DNA Pakistan cricket team
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:35 PM on April 21

wemayfreeze, I think the only legit reading would be, given the lack of punctuation

"Murder steals DNA Pakistan cricket team."
posted by maxwelton at 5:57 PM on April 21

yep, i think DNA is being used as a verb.

"Homicide squad collects Pakistan cricket team's DNA" is my suggested reading.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:36 PM on April 21

If only.
posted by tepidmonkey at 6:59 PM on April 21

No more ungrammatical than fingerprint used as a verb, wemayfreeze.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:00 PM on April 21

"Fingerprint" has that verb at the end of it (print). When you fingerprint someone, you are taking a print of their fingers. No such luck with DNA.

Anyhow, it's not the ungrammaticalness of it, it's that I've never heard DNA verbed like that before. Is it common? Googling is proving futile.
posted by wemayfreeze at 7:06 PM on April 21

OK. How about Taser? Cops Taser 90 year old woman. Where's the verb?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:09 PM on April 21

According to the acronym dictionary, the best fit is probably Murder cops do not answer Pakistan cricket team.

Either that, or Murder cops "definitely not attractive": Pakistan cricket team.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:16 PM on April 21

It's funny because it's not that funny.
posted by kittyprecious at 7:24 PM on April 21

The best I could do.
posted by maxwelton at 8:11 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

This was a good day for Metafilter.
posted by A dead Quaker at 8:40 PM on April 21

I just loved putting "Braves Suck!" on a CNN shirt. Now, let's see if I get it in the mail!
posted by jstef at 9:52 PM on April 21

Howabout "murder cops?" That part is weird too. I have never heard the phrase "murder cops" like that before.

...but I think I just named my new band
posted by ludwig_van at 10:01 PM on April 21

Fuck CNN. I can't even be bothered to edit up the URL. They must be destroyed.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:03 AM on April 22

Oh, all right.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:03 AM on April 22

The Post's "Ike Beats Tina To Death" is one of the best headlines ever.
posted by degoao at 8:46 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

From the FAQ: "What are the minimum computer specifications required to use CNN Shirts?"

When you have to list minimum computer requirements to buy a t-shirt, you may have already failed.
posted by atbash at 8:54 AM on April 22

To be fair, use of flash or JavaScript is pretty common when previewing customizable products, so CNN isn't really unique there. Not that there shouldn't be non-flash fallbacks of course.
posted by Artw at 9:28 AM on April 22

Looks like they "fixed" their web site, alas.
posted by maxwelton at 4:35 PM on April 22

Looks like they've added a hash to the headline. weirdly you can still hakc teh return URI as much as you like.

http://www.cnn.com/tshirt/index.html?
headline=Pacing%20man%20stuck%2041%20hours%20in%20elevator
&fhash=6ca868eac7d19ed9d34e2fc846301162
&date=1208867395000
&hash=11694688074e66750a174488fd93a954
&return_uri=http://www.metafilter.com
posted by Artw at 5:45 PM on April 22

Ah, so that's why none of the links above save for Artw's work. I kept getting automatically redirected to the headline page.
posted by Locative at 12:16 AM on April 23

I think there was a hash in the first place that prevented you from actually buying any.
posted by smackfu at 5:55 AM on April 23

Real shirt: Army barracks aswim in feces, ickiness
posted by smackfu at 12:47 PM on April 28