Aaron Landau Schwarz, launched GiveMeaName.com and offered to pay $25,000 for someone give him a new name. Aaron settled on Sunshine Megatron. Whatever you call this guy, he is the 31 year founder of the notorious T-Shirt Hell. Back in 2001 T-Shirt Hell launched and quickly got attention for selling offensive t-shirts. Some of his early shirts had phrases like “I Only Support Gay Marriage If Both Chicks Are Hot”; “I Beat Cancer (By Cancer I Mean Children)”; and “I Surfed the Tsunami 2004.”. T-Shirt Hell has frequently been in the news because of protests and outrage over racist, offensive and trademark infringing t-shirt slogans and graphics.
Despite the outrage over certain designs the site has made Aaron/Megatron millions. When T-Shirt Hell started it was selling about a dozen shirts per day which then grew to fifty, then hundreds, and on some days in four digits.
The one-on-one interview at Westword really gives some interesting insight into this colorful character.
The success of t-shirt hell is extremely impressive but I guess shock sells, right?! None the less, they have done very well to become the market leader in that particular t-shirt niche. A great interview there.