Questions and Answers and MeFi

November 29, 2022 9:00 AM

What is the origin of the "Item 1 and Item 2 and Item 3" meme that I see on t-shirts and posters and generally everywhere these days?

It's so generic that my google fu is failing me. Help! I must know!

Example

posted by soy_renfield to Society & Culture (11 answers total)

Best answer: John & Paul & Ringo & George.
posted by zamboni at 9:04 AM on November 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Worth noting that the revival of the meme was a Black feminist t-shirt listing, IIRC, Angela Davis, bell hooks and Audre Lorde. There were other versions shortly thereafter with slightly different names so I don't quite remember which were first. But that design was going around in Black Lives Matter-adjacent circles around 2015 as far as I can recall, and there was some criticism of how it was adapted first for other political causes and then for random things like hamburger toppings and so on when it was originated by Black women activists.
posted by Frowner at 9:50 AM on November 29, 2022 [8 favorites]

Best answer: (It was 2013, and the fourth name was Gloria (as in Anzaldua).)
posted by box at 9:59 AM on November 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

I can't find it any more but a few years ago I saw a shirt for sale that said something like

Type Tool &
Helvetica &
Ampersands &
Zero Effort
posted by aubilenon at 10:34 AM on November 29, 2022 [8 favorites]

I always thought it was
Joey
Johnny
Tommy
& Dee Dee
posted by AJaffe at 10:38 AM on November 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

A few months after designing the first shirt, they applied the concept to two other iconic rock bands: Keith & Mick & Bill & Charlie & Brian (the Rolling Stones) and Joey & DeeDee & Johnny & Tommy (the Ramones).

posted by zamboni at 11:07 AM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I can't find it any more but a few years ago I saw a shirt for sale that said something like

You may be thinking of TopatoCo's Helvetica & Ampersands & Type Tool & 2 Minutes.
posted by zamboni at 11:14 AM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's a store in Iowa called Raygun that started in the mid-2000s that traffics almost entirely in helvetica-ish word t-shirts, though not always with ampersands. I couldn't believe how many of these shirts I saw at the Iowa state fair when I was there a few years ago. Simultaneously, I've also taken note of the list of identities as online bios for at least the last decade ("Coder. Musician. Beard farmer. Father." or whatever, but usually with periods; always one a little tongue in cheek, always mostly over-earnest)

In my mind, there is no difference between these types of shirts (and the same style online bios) and middle-class white word signs (← snl skit).

I mostly encounter them as a sort of white-culture identity broadcast device, usually among people with midwest/rural roots, though as mentioned above, I have on rare occasion run into them among Black and other activists.
posted by msbrauer at 1:40 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Previously. And Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was released in 1969.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:22 PM on November 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

You may be thinking of TopatoCo's Helvetica & Ampersands & Type Tool & 2 Minutes.

I even searched TopatoCo for it! Apparently I needed to search for Ampersand, not Helvetica. Yes, that's what I was thinking of, thanks.
posted by aubilenon at 10:54 PM on November 29, 2022

I know these as Helvetica shirts. There are some origin stories about an Amsterdam design firm that originated them. They claim they developed it in 2001.
posted by Miko at 4:52 PM on November 30, 2022