Making Mommie Dearest Proud

As you know from buying our stuff like the menu item above says, we have stuff that you can buy. We love our penny profits from Redbubble, which gets most of our business since we were introduced to it as an option many years ago in fits of hup. It won the race in getting to us at just the right moment, and it has been rewarded by keeping a whole lot more pennies than we get every time a merch is sold.

Illustration of Joan Crawford's face, from the design this article is about.
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Then along came TeePublic. Like, a year and a half ago, I finally had a miniature huppopotamus by my side. It whispered into my ear that I should go ahead and make an account there, even though they have far fewer products to sell. Over that year and a half, some things were sold in a sporadic manner. Some of the things were myself or family getting in on some sale prices. Such is the way of things.

Always, I’m surprised when one design in particular is sold. It is found in both TeePublic and Sneer 1 Imports, and usually it is purchased via redbub in the form of a baby onesie. I can’t even remember when or why I originally drew this, but certain people seem to love it!

Screen capture from the red bubble store, Sneer 1 Imports, of a baby onesie featuring the design in question.
Intriguing.

I thought my story would end there. Over the years on Redbubble, we would just make a little laugh of disbelief any time another such onesie was sold. “Who are these people,” Dollissa and I would ask each other. It was infrequent enough that the laugh of disbelief was all we ever needed.

As I said before, though: Then along came TeePublic. For that first year and a half, until March 2023, maybe three total Mommie Dearest tees had been sold, eliciting that same little laugh. But, friends, for the past month, it has sold more than forty times.

This is the design with a soft pink background. The design is Joan Crawford's head surrounded by the words, "Make mommie dearest proud." Underneath her, accompanied by a wire coat hanger, it says, "or else."
Hmm.

Don’t think I am trying to brag here. Even though I am glad to be making these dollar profits (thanks, TeePublic, for being a good sport), the emotion I find inside of myself is just confusion with a little wary befuddlement thrown in. Of course I like my design. I think it is very nice. But why do these other people?

I’d like to welcome whatever club it is that has found its new official uniform, I guess! Are we dealing with a Joan Fan Club? A Bette Club that views this little piece of history as an embarrassment to the memory of Joan? Have the People Against the Use of Wire Hangers discovered a t-shirt that caters to their specific cause? Is this sentiment being taken by women’s rights activists and repurposed to be about the need for coat hangers as we slide backwards into the shameful and absurd past? Please, don’t let there be a fan club for the act of beating adopted children.

Some day, am I going to have someone forward me a news clip where people dressed in this shirt storm the Capitol and beat the out of touch politicians with wire hangers while screaming that those politicians are bringing shame to their own mothers? If that’s unlikely, can we have that arranged somehow?

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“Make Mommie Dearest Proud” is a mystifyingly popular design, and maybe I will never understand why. But if you’d like to join the ranks of the fashion forward while helping me achieve a monthly payout that will in all likelihood never be equaled or surpassed, please do shell out a little money at the TeePublic Store!

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