Music fans are still wrapping their minds around Kanye West’s newly-released gospel-themed album, but the similarly devout merchandise has people either up in arms or down in stitches.
On Wednesday, Kanye dropped a set of t-shirts, shorts, crewneck sweaters, sweatpants, hats, and socks. Piety is a recurring motif in all of the pieces, which will run you from $60 to $260.
What’s drawn increased attention to the merch – apart from the usual lamentation about the prices – was the somewhat sloppy graphic design.
A handful of pieces feature stretched-out images of black and white Jesus Christ, complete with low-resolution prints and 90’s-style graphics. The whole line was apparently designed by AWGE, A$AP Rocky’s creative agency.
The ‘Jesus is King’ merch has come in for a lot of stick online. “This made me even more atheist,” one user wrote.
Another said the clothes looked like “satire merch.”
A number of people jokingly suggested the whole line was made in Microsoft Word.
The wave of criticism then entered the meme territory – and became unstoppable.