Get Along Shirt
About
The "Get Along" Shirt is an oversized t-shirt that is meant to be worn by bickering children as a disciplinary method. The humorous concept gained much of its momentum after a photograph of two children strapped together by a t-shirt reading "The 'We Will Get Along' Shirt" was posted to Reddit in November 2012.
Origin
The first "We Will Get Along" Shirt photo was taken by Katie M. from Castro Valley, California and submitted to Ellen DeGeneres's daytime talk show Ellen. A clip from the show was posted to Ellen's website with the title "We Will Get Along"[1] on November 1st, 2012.
Spread
The same day, Redditor soltrigger submitted the photo to /r/Pics[3], but it slipped under the radar with 383 upvotes and 284 points. Six hours later, Redditor jose116 reposted the image to the Funny subreddit[2] with the title "When I become a parent I'm stealing this idea." This post earned more than 9100 upvotes and 1821 points overall. Over the next few days, the photo was reposted to CollegeHumor[5], 9gag[6], Lolfactory[7] and Funri.[8] On November 5th, Pittsburgh, PA radio station hosts Dave and Maria tried on their own version of the "We Will Get Along" shirt.[9]
Throughout December and January, photos of other children wearing similar shirts appeared on humor site No Way Girl[10], 9gag[11], designer Sheridan French's personal blog[12], Reddit[13], the Huffington Post[14] and the Nation.[15] As of January 2013, dozens of parodies of the shirt can be found on both humor and parenting boards on Pinterest.[4]
Response
On December 14th, 2012, Dr. Laura Markham, owner of AhaParenting.com[16], published a guest post on parenting blog Our Muddy Boots[17] criticizing the shirts, offering ten reasons that this method is not appropriate. She posited that Get Along shirts teach the children it's not okay to disagree with each other and that their parents are not concerned about their emotions and would rather the siblings just be quiet.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Ellen – We Will Get Along
[2] Reddit – When I become a parent I'm stealing this idea
[3] Reddit – We will get along.
[4] Pinterest – Search results for "get along shirt"
[5] CollegeHumor – The We Will Get Along Shirt
[6] 9gag – The "We Will Get Along" Shirt
[7] lolfactory – The "We Will Get Along" Shirt
[8] Funri – The "We Will Get Along" Shirt
[9] Q92.9 FM – Dave and Maria Try the "We Will Get Along" Shirt!
[10] No Way Girl – This Is Our Get Along Shirt
[11] 9gag – Our Get Along Shirt.
[12] The Southern Eclectic – Our Get Along Shirt
[13] Reddit – Desperate times call for desperate measures…thanks reddit
[14] Huffington Post – The Get Along Shirt: One Way To Ensure Your Kids Play Nice (PHOTO)
[15] The Nation – ‘Get along' shirt for arguing kids
[17] Our Muddy Boots – Our Get Along Shirt Guest Post by Dr. Laura Markham
Top Comments
Rukario
Jan 26, 2013 at 06:56PM EST
Cartoonmaster
Jan 31, 2013 at 01:25AM EST