With Entertainment Culture being at the forefront of everything cool lately (It’ll go away eventually), we as super-consumers have to look our best. We can’t get away with the same fifteen Hot Topic t-shirts that we see in every mall across the country. We nerds and culture-omnivores have to not only represent our interests, but we need to wear our identities on our chests! It’s no longer about sporting  your allegiance to rap or rock, disco or punk, or Mets or Yankees; it’s about showing people which version of The Doctor is your favorite.  If you’re having a pop-culture-shock here are some great websites that will help you rock your favorite duds through out the school year and beyond.

Tee Fury – Teefury.com
Tee Fury is my favorite of the $10 t-shirt sites. They offer shirts for just one day, though you can buy yesterday’s at a premium. What I like most about Tee Fury is that their shirts are by far the highest quality. Typically printed on heavy cotton, Tee Fury shirts last a while. I’ve had some of these shirts for years, and they’re barely starting to fade.  The logos and images on the shirts are also silk-screened to the highest quality, so when the shirt begins to fade the image on it stays as bright as it ever was. Tee Fury loves to tackle the nerdiest stuff alive, but I couldn’t live without this tee:

or this one:

or this one….

OK I’ll admit I’m a bit Tee Fury crazy, but these shirts are very high in quality, and look great. I’ve been complemented for these shirts, and love to wear them. The only danger with Tee Fury is the shirts update daily, so get ready to bust out that credit card. Typically you get your fresh, new shirt in the mail within a two or three weeks. It’s worth the wait!

Ript Apparel – riptapparel.com
Ript is the fourth website I visit daily after: Facebook, Gmail, and Tee Fury. Typically Ript likes to blend two different types of ideas onto one t-shirt. I’m not sure if that’s where the “ript” in Ript Apparel comes from but I think that has something to do with it. Ript likes to specialize in crossover art, so if you want to see Ninja Turtles mixed with Donkey Kong, this is the place for you.

Sadly, like Tee Fury Ript shirts are only around for a day so you need to continuously check back to see what’s new. I have some Ript shirts I don’t enjoy them nearly as much as I enjoy my Tee Fury tees, but they’re not bad. They typically run a little smaller and the printing is not of the highest quality, but they’re fun shirts. Also, expect a  lot of Dr. Who. That pretty much goes as the norm with any one day Internet shirt sites.

Shirt.Woot!- Shirt.woot.com
I used to love Woot Shirts. They were my introduction to this world of “net-shirting” (My phrase…I’m trademarking it). I’d pop on to Shirt.Woot.com and find some excellent t-shirts that would find their way into my collection. There were Mario shirts, Back to the Future Shirts, Batman, The Avengers. Then things got cute…too cute. Too many times did I see little cartoon animals with small black eyes. Dogs with Boba Fett Helmets, Snack Food Puns! The Horror. Something so sinister and terrifying that Graves could write a post about it. The bottom line on Woot is, check it daily, and sometimes you strike absolute gold.

Threadless – Threadless.com
Hey you modern hipster you. Want to find some sweet designs that neither say anything too special nor confuse people with pop-culture crossover? Then go to Threadless. I actually like Threadless quite a bit. It’s not as fun as the others, but these shirts just look cool. They challenge the layout and aren’t afraid to have art wrap-around. One of my favorite shirts is a threadless tee.

See how the artwork is a little more high-brow? That’s what you get from Threadless, new artists trying to make a name for themselves. You can buy their artwork for under $20 and wear it on your body. The color combinations also work very well together, and the shirts are printed on American Apparel. They’re comfortable and made in the US. Threadless also only updates every so often, so no need to hound the site daily, just be ready to part with your money when you check out the site.

Red Bubble – Redbubble.com
Red Bubble is the elephant grave yard of “net shirting”. As the wasteland for forgotten tees Red Bubble is the perfect place to hit up when you missed out on a shirt from any of these other websites. I’ve had some real luck scouring Red Bubble. They also have art prints that can be hung in a home, and other sorts of oddities with fun pop-art on them. Red Bubble may be a last resort, but sometimes you find gold that you never knew existed! I mean check out this Chocobo shirt.

I found that one on a net shirting adventure! So sometimes you get some cool stuff on Red Bubble. It’s definitely worth a check every once and a while.

So there you have it! Want to look cool for school and impress all of your friends? You need to start Net Shirting. It’s not hard, just be wary as you’ll spend all of your money and run out of drawer space. Enjoy the school year everyone, look your coolest.