Wearing Carhartt

Submission 9,800

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About

Wearing Carhartt or Carhartt Shit refers to a series of memes poking fun at people who wear the workwear clothing brand Carhartt but don't have jobs that are in manual labor, portraying them as hipsters and posers, similar to people who wear skating brands but don't skateboard. Memes about Carhartt increased over the course of the 2010s as the brand became more fashionable as streetwear rather than workwear.

Origin

Carhartt was founded in 1889 as a high-quality workwear brand. In 1994, the company expanded with their Carhartt Work In Progress brand, focused on streetwear designs similar to companies like Supreme rather than workwear. Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, Carhartt workwear became increasingly popular as a form of casual streetwear. Notably, the Weathered Duck Detroit jacket became a popular standout piece, making an appearance in the music video for "Jump Around" by House of Pain (shown below). A 2014 article published by The Guardian^[2] about Carhartt's popularity as streetwear mentions Matthew McConaughey wearing the jacket throughout the film Interstellar. Carhartt workwear was also celebrated as streetwear in a 2014 article published by Complex.^[1] The brand is often discussed on the r/streetwear subreddit.

Memes poking fun at people who wear Carhartt but don't work manual labor jobs increased in prevalence throughout 2019 and 2020. For example, on February 15th, 2020, Instagram^[3] user TheNewfoundlandTurnip posted an image macro showing a Carhartt beanie captioned, "Wearing Carhartt gear is wild. Are you a student? A hipster? A licensed forklift operator? No one knows," gaining over 1,000 likes in two years (shown below). The meme was reposted to Facebook^[4] and iFunny^[5] the next day, gaining over 5,800 reactions and 21,000 shares on the former and 64,000 smiles on the latter in two years.

Spread

Memes about wearing Carhartt increased over the course of 2020 and 2021. On January 21st, 2021, Facebook^[6] page Weasel Face posted a piece of artwork where a skater tells a construction worker not to wear Thrasher if you don't skate and the worker tells the skater not to wear Carhartt if he doesn't work, gaining over 4,000 shares and 2,000 reactions in a year (shown below).

On February 26th, Twitter^[7] user @Ryan__1714 posted, "Everyone wants to wear Carhartt till it’s time to do Carhartt shit," gaining over 232,000 likes and 27,000 retweets in a year. The tweet was screenshotted and gained viral spread on social media, inspiring numerous memes using variations of the phrase (examples shown below).^[8]^[9]

On January 8th, 2022, Instagram^[10] page oldrowofficial posted a meme using the phrase, depicting Carhartt wearers in an ironically negative light, gaining over 67,000 likes in three months (shown below).

That month, Carhartt announced it would keep its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for workers.^[11] This inspired criticism from some towards the brand. That month, Facebook^[12]^[13] page The Other 98% posted several memes referencing this and teasing those who were angry about the decision (examples shown below).