Disney decides that selling Joy Division-inspired shirts maybe isn't such a good idea

By Sean O'Neal | January 25, 2012 | 10:44pm

Aux Features Music

Yesterday, some of you may have attempted, with Peter Hook’s implicit endorsement, to purchase Disney’s Joy Division-inspired shirt—even though we already told you it was sold out, jeez! Sometimes it’s like we’re just writing these articles for ourselves, right Sean? That’s right, Sean. You’re doing a great job, by the way. You deserve a drink when this is all over. Anyway, those of you who tried may have found yourselves on a blank webpage, subsequently overwhelmed by an emptiness that could only find its analogue in either bleak, claustrophobic post-punk or “Mickey’s Birthday Party.” As it turns out, that’s because Disney has stopped selling the shirt entirely, issuing a statement to Pitchfork that reads, “As soon as we became aware there could be an issue, we pulled it from our shelves and our online store to review the situation further.”

The statement doesn’t clarify as to the nature of the “issue” it’s now suddenly aware of—especially given that even Hook admits that the design is public domain—but somewhere in Disney headquarters there are probably a bunch of executives actually listening to Joy Division and/or using Google for the first time. Anyway, naturally the shirts have become an immediate collector’s item, with Pitchfork noting that some are currently going for upwards of $200 on eBay. Which certainly seems like a lot, but that is what irony retails for these days.