We all let the occasional typo go (ahem), but for a major festival to sell merchandise littered with them is unforgivable... isn’t it?
However, fans who attended the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas over the weekend are evidently forgiving types. That seems to be the message after punters took to Reddit when they discovered some of the merch they’d purchased over the weekend took a somewhat, er, slack approach to spelling.
"La duxes. Amor for sleep. Moveuments. All amercian rejects. New and glory. We are in the crowd. Sleeping with siriens. These are all the ones I saw. Someone dropped the ball. This is bad bad," noted one person on the thread.
In case you weren’t familiar with those acts, they should read: ‘L.S. Dunes, Armor For Sleep, Movements, All-American Rejects (don’t forget the hyphen!), New Found Glory, We Are The In Crowd and Sleeping With Sirens’.
It’s not as if the mistakes were consistent. Some hoodies spelt Movements as ‘Movevments’, others capped up the ‘are’ in We Are The In Crowd, or forgot the full stops in L.S. Dunes.
Speculation was rife over who or what was to blame. One punter wrote: "This makes me think they got the design for super cheap on Fiverr or something. That many mistakes makes me think the designer doesn’t know English. They probably paid someone like $30."
Another pondered: "I know people are just calling everything they don’t like “AI” now but I would expect AI to spell correctly and not transpose or add random letters.”
Many though chose to see the funny side of the whole debacle. "I love how the typos are inconsistent across shirts, that's really chef's kiss," wrote one fan. Whilst another wrote: "This is weirdly hilarious and also pathetic but honestly we are in the crowd has me cackling.”
They’re right. It’s very funny.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that the typo-ridden hoodies end up becoming collectors’ items. One Reddit user wrote: "TBH I want one with the typos." Another posted that: "I didn’t intend to buy any merch but the typos make me actually want it lmao."
The festival held its fourth edition over the weekend and was headlined by emo icons My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. Those two acts, at least, seem to have escaped being immortalised on merch by ridiculous typos.
