'I enjoy craft beer, the San Diego Super Chargers, & I tend to wear T-shirts with cats on them.'
Alex Chousmith, Cat T-Shirt Connoisseur
Meet Alex Chousmith, a University of California, San Diego graduate working as the Senior Web Developer at Ninthlink, Inc. in San Diego, California.
Why do we love Alex? He is a collector of one of our favorite items here inside the internet: cat T-shirts! But Alex is not just any t-shirt collector; he has one of the most incredible collection of cat T-shirts we have ever seen. So incredible, you need to see it to believe it. See for yourself by stopping by Alex's website! We were so amazed by Alex's astounding collection, we had to interview him to learn the story behind the cornucopia of cat tees.
Q: First, here's the most obvious question. Why Cats? I love cats, big and small. I grew up with a couple cats, one at a time. But somewhere along the way, I developed an allergy. When dating my wife got serious, years ago, we agreed that we wouldn't get an actual cat as a pet, so as a compromise, I decided to start wearing shirts with cats on them. Maybe we should have just gotten a kitten instead? Haha!
Q: Exactly how many cat T-shirts do you own? About 270, I think? I guess maybe it got a little out of hand.
Q: We hear you have a website dedicated to all your cat tees! Tell us about it My New Year's Resolution going into 2012 was to start a blog type of site and post a cat shirt each day. At that time, at the end of 2011, I had accumulated maybe about 80 cat shirts. I thought hey if I could keep track and wear a different one each day and make it to maybe 100 days, that'd be pretty cool. Then 100 stretched a little more, and stretched again, and I made it through June 30th, half the year. So I figured that was good at that time, and started over. But the collection kept growing. When I turned 30 last month, my wife threw me a ridiculously rad surprise party where guests were asked to either bring me beer or a cat shirt. So I'm still going now. There's even some crazy instagram video of me wearing all the shirts I got for my birthday at one time, if you are in to that sort of thing check it out here and this other video. So every day, I take a picture of me wearing a shirt, and post it to the site, and then tweet the link and try to give credit to whoever designed the shirt, in the tweet, which then goes straight to my Facebook page.
Q: Which was the first Design By Humans tee that you ever purchased? The first I ever got would be a tossup between two we ordered at the same time-Caspian Tiger (1947) and Primal. I'd have to check with my wife to see if she remembers which one was added to the cart first.
Q: Has anyone ever struck up a conversation with you about your DBH cat tee? Of course! I wore Kitty's Mouse-tache to a Starbucks, and the barista dude asked, "what drew you to that shirt?" I told him my wife picked it out, and he said that maybe it was a sign that she was hoping to leave me for Tom Seleck. I think I'm safe though.
Q: Which is your favorite Design By Humans cat tee? It's hard for me to name one favorite, but I'll stick with that Space Cat.
Q: What do you think the perfect cat T-shirt would look like? Hmmmmm. Some kind of neon colors, maybe laser beams, probably some kind of nerd glasses involved... that, or just like a ton of cats all over the shirt front and back, doin' stuff.
T-Shirt Reviews from a Cat Tee Connoisseur
No King by Kdeuce
'Clean design, and the lion wears the crown. But I don't understand the random circle on the lion's chin. Maybe I'm just not in the know there.'
Hunting Season by Pinkstorm
'This tee has a huge neon tiger on it - so fierce. I feel like the design is so clean and huge that you could wear that shirt while going with the dudes to watch a UFC fight, and fit in with people wearing whatever fight shirts they wear these days, but you are wearing a righteous design with a tiger on it, from the internets.'
Grumpy Astronaut, Not! by Zerobriant
'Just whimsical fun - why is the grumpy cat going to outer space? Don't we still need him on earth? Well designed, and you can choose your color, which is super nice. It seems like people seem to like making cat shirts just on black T-shirts, and it's nice to be able to diversify. I got mine on red. Or, well, my wife bought it on red :-)'
View Alex Chousmith's entire cat tee collection on his website, and to follow him on social media, see his about page. You can find even more cat t-shirts in our cat collection. I'm inspired, are you inspired?