Old Navy is in hot water over these tone-deaf t-shirts
Look, even those of us who are in creative fields joke about the whole “starving artist” stereotype. Yet, plenty of people make their livings in creative fields; the word “artist” doesn’t just mean a painter in her barn eking out a bare living anymore, and instead encompasses fields as commercial as, say, clothing design. Which is why we’re disappointed in some of Old Navy’s kid’s shirts, which suggest that being a “Young, Aspiring Artist” is more of a punchline than a viable reality.
As first picked up by astute Twitter observers, Old Navy was selling a set of kid’s designs that featured the bold text “Young Aspiring Artist,” with “Artist” then slashed out and replaced with, presumably, a more prestigious career like “President” or “Astronaut.” While obviously those are totally aspirational goals, there’s, uh, nothing wrong with wanting to be an artist, especially when you’re a kid who also concurrently wants to be a singer, a movie star, a mad scientist, and a cowboy. But, we “get it”: This isn’t quite as cheeky as putting down a vast myriad of professions. For a kid’s shirt.
The lone remaining shirt visible on the Old Navy site, which swaps Artist for Astronaut, links out to a page that doesn’t include its own design. While we’re mostly just face-palming over this whole ordeal . . . didn’t an artist have to design that shirt? Just saying.
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Image via Old Navy and David Gallaher/Twitter.