Joke review boosts T-shirt sales

A T-shirt has become one of the most popular items sold by online retailer Amazon in the past few weeks.

Sales of the kitsch Three Wolf Moon T-shirt shot up 2,300% after a spate of ironic reviews went viral.

The first review gave the shirt five stars, saying it "Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women" but "cannot see wolves with arms crossed".

 That prompted hundreds of others to post frivolous reviews, turning the page into an internet phenomenon.

"When I put this T-shirt on for the first time, my wife left me! Thank you, Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt," wrote one wag, while another said that "the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt gave me a +10 resistance to energy attacks, +8 Strength... and I have successfully solved 7 crimes in my city".

 Amazon's senior manager of community content, Russell Dicker, said the T-shirt was currently the top selling item in their clothing store.

"The Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt recently moved up 2,300% in sales rank," he said. "We are grateful that our reviewers are so passionate."

Publicity shy

However, the firm which actually makes the T-shirt appeared less than pleased at some of the comments.

"The Mountain is a wholesale company and does not sell shirts on Amazon, so this viral assault went under our radar until the shirt made it into the top 10 in the Amazon apparel section," they said in a posting on the Amazon site.

"We appreciate humour as much as the next company, but we don't approve of some of the remarks.

"Not everyone can start out at the top and not everyone from our neck of the woods lives in a trailer or cruises Walmart to hook up."

However, speaking on Radio Five Live, the firms art director - Michael McGloin - said the firm were actually rather pleased with the publicity.

"We'll take ironic fashion any day.... and we're printing another 400,000 more t-shirts...it's just a fantastic thing," he said.

This is not the first time comedy reviews on Amazon have gone viral. In 2006, there were more than a thousand reviews for Tuscan Whole Milk.

They ranged from soap opera-style script - "That was when I knew. He was tired of this life with me, tired of bringing home the Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz" - to stating the obvious: "Has anyone else tried pouring this stuff over dry cereal? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!" 

By DAVID WRIGHT, URSULA FAHY and SADIE BASS
May 27, 2009

Six months ago, Brian Govern, a student at Rutgers University, penned a satirical comment about a T-shirt on Amazon.com.

"I was searching for a book for school and the Amazon recommendation system suggested I might like the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt," said Govern. "It was just a completely serendipitous one-time thing. I just got the urge and thought it would be funny."

"Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women," he wrote, adding an anecdote about how, the first time he sported the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt to Walmart, women suddenly started flocking to him.

But the truth is, he doesn't even own the shirt.

His posting caught the eye of the editors of collegehumor.com, whose readers added their own comic reviews. So far, more than 750 people have posted their comments about the T-shirt on Amazon, each one more outlandish than the last.

 Three Wolf Moon T-shirt an Amazon top seller after reviews give it cult status

By Mike Swain 21/05/2009

 A T-shirt with a picture of three wolves howling at the moon has become a bestseller on Amazon.

Sales of "Three Wolf Moon" top leapt 2,300 per cent after a spate of ironic reviews.

The first review gave five stars and said: "Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women" but "can't see wolves with arms crossed".

That prompted hundreds of frivolous reviews and turned the shirt into a phenomenon.

One wag wrote: "The Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt gave me a +10 resistance to energy attacks, +8 Strength... and I have successfully solved 7 crimes in my city."

However, the T-shirt makers did not appear to be thrilled and said: "The Mountain is a wholesale company and does not sell shirts on Amazon. We don't approve of some of the remarks."

Amazon has seen this type of case before. In 2006 there were more than 1,000 reviews for Tuscan Whole Milk.

 The Mountain t-shirt collection features Gorilla

The Mountain T-Shirts Are Manufactured In A Method That Is Environmentally Friendly And They Are Beautiful 

Read about all about the company's policies with regard to the clothing they manufacture and how they do it.

• They use only top quality, pre-washed and pre-shrunk 100 percent cotton and they have been using organic cotton for 15 years.
• The shirts are hand-dyed by them.
• They use only environmentally friendly (earth friendly), water-based inks and dyes and they have been doing so for 20 years.
• They use a process that dyes the fabric rather than printing on it. This results in a t-shirt that is more detailed and more durable.
• They are 100 percent Oekotex certified. What the heck does that mean? Well it is the highest qualification a company can earn and guarantees your purchase to be totally free of chemicals that harm you or your families' health.
• Employees are important, too. A couple of perks are an on-site childcare center and organic, healthy meals served twice, free of charge!
• The Mountain t-shirts are made in New Hampshire which means valuable resources are NOT used to transport them halfway around the world!