ChinaSMACK T-shirt finds an offline way to express an online opinion

These magic T-shirts will protect you from censorship. Would we lie about something like that?

The online campaigners at ChinaSMACK have found an old school way to get a message of rancor off their chests ... and onto yours. The website is selling T-shirts emblazoned with text that roughly reads, "Certified By Netizens."

Created by Chinese graduate art student Paul Guo, the shirt's apparently genial motto actually carries a more subtle message of dissatisfaction with the Chinese government's "harmonization" of the Internet and Chinese Netizens.

Guo explains the cryptic shirt with this equally cryptic statement: “Most websites based [in] Mainland China often have the ICP registered number and red shield badge at the bottom of their page, like, “沪ICP备05000001号” (registered #05000001 by ICP of Shanghai). I replaced the original red shield badge with Jiong badge, “沪ICP备” with “网民证,” “numbers号” with “chinaSMACK号.” So it’s something like “#chinaSMACK certified by Netizens.”

Although the message might not be completely clear to everyone, we still love the shirt.