The shirt “seems to be both stereotyping and not, at the same time,” Marcel Danesi, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, wrote in an email. “It is a pithy, but highly connotatively charged, one-line joke.” He said that the shirt’s memelike nature added to its strength, as humor can often be more effective at communicating identity, personality or aspiration than other, grander displays.
Several employees at souvenir shops in Chinatown said that the shirts were a relatively recent addition. They started carrying them after noticing their popularity at stores in Little Italy.
One employee at a Chinatown gift shop said that the store started carrying the “Daddy’s Little Meatball” shirt just two months ago. It has sold “Mommy’s Little Meatball” for the past couple of years, he said, but he has noticed sales for both increasing this summer.
Ajit Biswas, who works at a gift shop on Canal Street, said that the store sold about 10 to 15 of the shirts every day, adding that “Mommy’s Little Meatball” is the more popular option.
But shopkeepers were tight-lipped about the origin of the shirts. When asked where they bought them from, this New York Times reporter was quickly shooed out the door.
like it sounds like there are two things at play here:
- tourists buying this shirt because it looks like (and is, in fact) some garbage you would buy at a t-shirt stand;
- locals buying this shirt as an ironic reappropriation;
and both of which somehow turn on the fact that this shirt is less markedly touristy than both sincere-traditional ("I ❤️ NY") and ironic-traditional (e.g. "I went to New York and all I got was this lousy T-shirt") souvenirs