The New Yorker and J.Crew’s “Future Critic” Shirt for Kids Is Obnoxious as Hell

Over twenty years ago, I worked at the mecca for trashy suburban mall goths, Hot Topic. Alongside once greeting a surly teen goth and receiving only a grunt in return and the little-known fact that Juggalos only want the largest-sized Insane Clown Posse shirts available in the store, no matter their body shape, one of my strongest memories of that summer retail job was staring awkwardly into the middle distance and trying to fade into the all-black background as mothers and their children squared off over desired T-shirts. It didn’t matter if the shirt was a nu-metal band tee, a nasty Happy Bunny graphic that grinned while captioned with insults like “Hating you makes me warm inside” (This was the early aughts), or even the relatively inoffensive, pink Barbie logo shirt. The kid, usually a pre-teen but I saw both younger and older, would cross their arms and roll their eyes in a huff while mom sighed and shook her head, all while I hovered nearby ready to put the T-shirts back on the tippy-top of the wall display. (It was always over the shirts that required my help). While annoying, this was, I believe, my punishment for doing the same to my parents as many, many kids have done before and since. Arguing over a coveted piece of clothing is a childhood rite of passage. If you’re doing your growing-up job right, your parents should absolutely hate whatever crap you want to wear (that you’ll be mortified about years later).

Imagine the parents and kids having this same sartorial tension over The New Yorker and J.Crew’s new collaborative T-shirt for kiddos: a plain white tee with black lettering using The New Yorker’s traditional NY Irvin font that reads: “Future Critic.” Picture a child stomping their feet and whining, “MOM! I WANT TO BE A CRITIC!!!! I’M A FUTURE CRITIC!!! MOOOOOMMMMMM!” You can’t? Not even if you strain to picture the most culturally elitist snoots in the New York area? Me neither! Who the fuck is this shirt for?

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since friend of Filthy Dreams Laura Swanson flagged a tweet that reposted the promotional photo of the shirt worn by a cute little boy dressed like a twerp. In addition to the “Future Critic” tee, pulled over a collared shirt, the boy sports a perfect imitation of the slacks, tucked-in shirt, clear framed glasses, and just-so-you-know-I’m-cool-and-casual-and-certainly-not-hiding-my-bald-cranium baseball cap I’ve seen around press openings before I learned to avoid them completely. (Later, after scouring J.Crew’s site, I learned this is also the preferred style of New Yorker creative director Nicholas Blechman.) Beyond the dorky outfit that would certainly get this doomed child shoved into a locker or dunked in toilet water, the “Future Critic” shirt filled me with both confusion and burning rage.

Starting with the confusion, who the fuck wants to wear New Yorker-branded J.Crew clothes other than people who work at The New Yorker that I hope don’t have to pay $128 for a black hoodie with their employer’s name on it? Something about the intersection of J. Crew and The New Yorker doesn’t quite fit to me. The preppy clothing brand has experienced a miraculous resurgence after its 2020 bankruptcy. However, I still associate J.Crew with its abhorrent woven lobster-speckled, salmon-colored men’s shorts worn by people who want to pretend they’re on a sailboat in New England but are really just at the mall. Conversely, The New Yorker is a publication built on, mainly, baffling cartoons about therapy, alongside occasionally worthwhile investigative pieces and cultural criticism. J.Crew’s site explains that this collection is in honor of The New Yorker’s 100^th anniversary and I’m sure there is some cultural cachet for J.Crew’s collaboration with the stalwart publication. To me, though, it mostly comes off as The New Yorker, like many publications at the moment, desperately needs alternative revenue streams! Hopefully, Current Critics will receive some of the benefit.

It’s worth noting that although I reserve most of my horror for one T-shirt in particular, the adult options might actually be worse than the clothes for kids. The adult merch may not be grating, but it is low effort and boring and screams, “You’ll see me again on the sales rack by spring!” I mean, do you want a men’s shirt printed with a cartoon of Saint Peter judging people waiting at the pearly gates for wearing white after Labor Day? Haha! So funny! Even the model who vaguely resembles comedian Chris DiStefano looks perturbed and a little ashamed. Can you blame him? Not that the women’s shirt with a cartoon is any better. Bizarrely located on the back of the T-shirt, the cartoon features a woman in a giant David Byrne-like jacket who responds to her unconvinced husband, “For your information, it’s not too big—it’s oversized,” which is especially strange as the J.Crew shirt is slightly cropped. I guess that’s what you call irony. At least the cartoons have some sort of character. The same cannot be said for the bland, expensive crewneck sweaters with The New Yorker logo on the back. Who is wearing this for $168?:

The kiddos don’t even get a cartoon—just a cashmere New Yorker sweater for the bougiest baby imaginable, a hoodie, and two white “Talk of the Town” and “Future Critic” shirts. Before even digging into the bothersome “Future Critic” choice, a white shirt for a child seems like a precarious purchase, no? I don’t even buy white T-shirts because I’ll stain them before I even leave the store. I’ve learned this the hard way many, many times. If I don’t dump coffee down the front of it, I’ll smear the armpits with my Italian American olive oil sweat in the summer—I can’t help it. It’s my heritage. Maybe the “Future Critics” are less slobbish than me.

That is certainly a possibility given the ad campaign on the J.Crew website, which features a strawberry blonde-haired girl sitting primly at a fancy restaurant with her chin rested on her fist like The Thinker. She would never splatter Diet Coke on her white T-shirt or dribble butter down her chest after ripping apart the giant lobster on a silver platter set in front of her with her bare hands. And that whole lobster? Just a routine meal for critics, of course! I’m sure I’m not the only writer bored to tears by being served whole lobster on the regular! What exactly does J.Crew’s team think critics’ lives are like? I have only been served a whole lobster one time in my life—at a post-opening dinner by a gallery that was notorious for never paying their staff or their artists, which says a whole lot about the bullshit façade of the art world economy.

Which brings me to the “Future Critic” T-shirt. What little weirdo dreams of being a critic? What parent wants their kid to be a critic? Has critic replaced curator as the fake business title du jour? For those who may not recall, there was a period not too long ago when everyone you met who appeared to be independently wealthy said they were curators with no discernable thing that they were curating. At a party, a friend of a friend once shared they were a “podcast curator.” Your guess is as good as mine about what in the world that entailed. But at least curator is a job that still exists. Critic, less and less so.

This is why I find this “Future Critic” shirt enragingly obnoxious—it romanticizes a dwindling job that barely exists anymore. At least as a full-time staff position in which a human being can make a livable wage. Let’s say this little kid wants to be the next Richard Brody…or whoever. When longtime staff critics leave their jobs, what’s the chance that staff positions won’t just be turned over to a bunch of freelancers? Or that publications won’t hire some young upstart with barely a CV because they won’t laugh off the meager salary in comparison to what the older generations received? Either is very likely. The shirt is even more ghoulish when you know that The New Yorker themselves are responsible for hacking off freelance critic opportunities, roles that aren’t ideal but are better than nothing, by downsizing their Goings On About Town section. It’s pretty bold to foresee a future for these future critics when the publication associated with this shirt is also doing away with critic gigs.

In fact, there are so few staff jobs for critics that they should probably make the Future Critic shirt in adult sizes too! Not that the child sizes are going to stop current critics from buying a shirt and ironically squeezing into it for openings, art fairs, or film press screenings. Don’t think I didn’t notice that the XXL “Future Critic” shirts are sold out! I want to claw my eyes out already in anticipation.

Now, I realize that this shirt was probably partially intended to be seen as a wry nod to kids criticizing just about everything their parents do or anything they don’t love about the world in general. But maybe a shirt that said “Little Asshole” would do (or perhaps “Future Critic” is the exact same thing). But I think this shirt is worth taking seriously because it does a nice job of framing critic as an aspirational position in society, not one that is a struggle for most people who find themselves within that position. If they wanted to throw in a dose of realism, why not add another print on the back like “Future Medicaid Recipient” or “Future EBT Card Holder”? Or the ever-popular, “Future Trust Fund Kid Who Needs Something To Do?” The latter is much more likely for one of these “Future Critics” anyway considering the Variety article about The New Yorker and J.Crew collection that refers to “bi-coastal elites getting fed.”

Oh, so that’s who this is for…