Outrage Over Tasteless Kurt Cobain T-Shirt on Etsy

Fashion is a largely subjective art but few would argue that printing Kurt Cobain’s handwritten suicide note on a t-shirt is a good idea.

However, that’s exactly what at least one person has decided to do, first posting the shirt on Etsy.com. After a widely circulated post on Reddit, the Etsy posting was removed but an individual is now offering the baseball styled t-shirt for $25.19 on eBay. At least 18 people have already purchased the shirt so far, but thousands of people on Twitter and Facebook have voiced their objections to the design. (Update: eBay pulled the listing as well.)

"I’m probably not alone in this opinion… but making money from a person’s death in the form of a tee shirt seems pretty low to me," says one commenter, Tara McGinley on Dangerous Minds.

"Even if that person was a world famous rockstar… it’s still incredibly tacky, IMO.”

The Nirvana singer and guitarist died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 5, 1994 after years of battling mental and physical illnesses as well as addiction. The image printed on the t-shirt is taken directly from photos of Cobain’s suicide note that were first released in 2002. In 2014, Seattle police released additional photos of the note, along with other pictures taken at the scene of the investigation.

The t-shirt first came to prominence on Twitter this week, when a user offered this critical take of another user showing off the questionable item of clothing.

The unnamed Twitter user in the photo wrote of the t-shirt: “The best T-shirt I ever received in the mail (Kurt Cobain suicide letter),” according to Metro. After receiving thousands of negative messages, the Twitter user followed up in a response writing: “Last tweet on the subject, sorry if it offended you, I see where you’re coming from but I’m not changing anything, you don’t know me bye.”

The description for the eBay listing of the t-shirt is sparse, with a message from Thailand-based seller “nuchyk” simple reading: “Not Official T-Shirt, 100% made by me.”

Even though the shirt has received an overwhelming degree of negative responses, the attention and controversy surrounding it may have unintentionally helped turn it into something of a collector item for as long as the shirt remains available for sale.

However, petition has already been circulating on the site Change.org asking the shirt’s seller to cease distribution and issue a public apology. The petition reads in part:

“This not only is a huge insult and slap to the face toward the legend Kurt Cobain himself, but as well as to all of his loved ones, his devoted fans, his legacy, and most importantly people around the world who currently suffer with mental illnesses of their own such as depression, anxiety and self image dysphoria.”