Meet the Vendors Selling ‘Cornell Seven’ Merch

Last weekend, the clothing brand Cherrykitten published an Instagram post promoting T-shirts, crop tops, and sports bras with the slogan “I Am Jane Doe” emblazoned on the front. “ALL OF US ARE UNTIL NONE OF US ARE,” the company wrote in the caption, adding that it would donate 5 percent of the net sales proceeds to the National Organization for Women. A reference to the “Cornell Seven” case, in which an anonymous woman accused seven Cornell University fraternity members of sexual assault, among other counts, #IAmJaneDoe started going viral last week. Many sexual assault survivors used the hashtag in solidarity with the alleged victim after trolls attempted to dox her on social media. (All seven of those accused have denied wrongdoing, and none have been charged with a crime.) The message, while powerful, may have been ill-suited for appropriation by Cherrykitten, a brand perhaps best known for selling tank tops and crop tops with slogans like “Pls do not give me a cigarette no matter what I say” and “AI cannot generate tits like these.” The company received immediate backlash on social media for selling the shirts, with many accusing it of tastelessly capitalizing off of a grisly sexual assault case. “Using the cornell seven sexual assault as a merch idea and then donating ONLY 5% to a womens charity.. oh cherrykitten.. you’re fucked,” one tweet with 2.2 million views read. The brand removed the post, issuing an apology for “turning a real and deeply serious situation into a product,” according to a screengrab of a now-deleted Instagram post. (Cherrykitten did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.) But Cherrykitten is far from the only brand attempting to market apparel around the Cornell Seven case, which has garnered outrage around the world. On Amazon, there are more than 6,000 results for “I Am Jane Doe” T-shirts; on platforms like Etsy and Redbubble, there are hundreds of sellers promoting such merch, including T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, bracelets, mugs, and bumper stickers. The listings, which include keywords like “feminist,” “true crime,” “protest,” and (weirdly, on Redbubble) “lizzieborden,” often feature AI-generated photos of women with shiny hair and broad grins modeling the merch. One such seller, who requested her name be withheld to protect her privacy given the sensitive nature of the case, is the owner of a three-year-old shop on Etsy which sells T-shirts with progressive slogans. Her “I Am Jane Doe” sweatshirts in shades like ash, dark chocolate, and purple cost between $19.53 and $27.93; she’s sold 21 since October 1. An assault survivor herself, the seller tells WIRED via email she came across the Cornell Seven story on social media, and was “deeply moved” by the #IAmJaneDoe movement. “I wanted this shirt to be a small but visible way of saying: we see you, we believe you, and we stand with you,” she says. “[When] I came across the Jane Doe story on social media, I saw yet another woman who had been failed by people and systems, and I felt really strongly about that. That we need to stand up for her. That she deserves justice ... For me, ‘I Am Jane Doe’ was not about turning anyone's pain into a trend,” she says. “It was my way of saying that I see her, I believe her, and I stand with her.” It’s not uncommon for Etsy vendors to sell items inspired by current events. It happened after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and during the 2022 Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation case, where much of the merch was pro-Depp and featured quotes from Depp on the stand. As WIRED has previously reported, the rise of mass-produced print-on-demand goods, as well as Etsy’s relatively lax policies toward AI-generated listings, allow vendors to rapidly create, design, promote, and sell such items in accordance with the news cycle. Yet there are often ethical questions associated with commodifying social movements for a quick buck, and it can be difficult for consumers to vet the motives of those selling such products. “If [people are] raising money to support survivors, that’s OK,” Simintha Esson, chief development officer for RAINN, the country’s largest anti-sexual-assault organization, tells WIRED when asked about the recent onslaught of Jane Doe merch. “We know the need is there—calls to RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline are up 73 percent in the last week. But if it’s just exploiting Jane Doe’s name and case for profit, people are better off giving to an organization that is trying to make things better.” Even those who purport to be financially supporting survivors are worthy of skepticism. The website I Am Jane Doe Merch, for instance, includes such bestselling items as an “I Am Jane Doe” baby tee, an “Educate Your Sons” crop top stenciled with a butterfly, and a “Dead Men Don’t Rape” T-shirt featuring the serial killer Aileen Wuornos. (According to website data, more than 700 Aileen Wuornos T-shirts have sold.) The website, which was created on October 2, according to the domain reverse-search tool WhoIs, includes a description stating that an unspecified percentage of the proceeds will go directly to Jane Doe herself, “to help her legal expenses and related costs.” “Any contribution, no matter the amount, can help lessen that burden and support Jane in accessing support, advocacy, and/or justice and accountability,” the description reads. When reached for comment, however, Thomas P. Giuffra, the attorney for Jane Doe, tells WIRED that there are no authorized fundraising sites for Jane Doe. While she has requested that all donations go to RAINN, other efforts such as I Am Jane Doe Merch are “not affiliated with us, and we urge the public to use caution before contributing to one,” he says in a statement. (Though WhoIs data has kept the identity of the owner of I Am Jane Doe Merch anonymous, WIRED has reached out to an email address associated with the website for comment.) Some influencers selling “I Am Jane Doe” merchandise are donating all or most of the proceeds to organizations benefiting sexual survivors. Justin Kralemann, a content creator and activist who goes by the handle the Woke Ginger, says he was inspired to sell shirts after women flooded to his comments section to share their own experiences with sexual assault and trauma. “Their stories broke my heart,” he says. “I’m a cisgender man and can’t directly speak to women’s lived experiences, but I wanted to do something beyond sharing news updates to help those fighting sexual violence against women.” With EQNQ Studio, a company that makes “progressive apparel that celebrates equality, community, and the courage to speak up,” according to its website, Kralemann is selling “I Am Jane Doe” T-shirts in teal (the color associated with Sexual Assault Awareness Month) and dark heather for $24.95 a pop. He says approximately 67 percent of the proceeds will support the national organization End Rape on Campus, and approximately 33 percent will go to EQNQ Studio, the small business producing, hand-making, and shipping the shirts. Per EQNQ, they have sold 255 shirts thus far. A few days after we started corresponding, the Etsy vendor selling sweatshirts provided an update: she had decided to stop selling the “I Am Jane Doe” sweatshirt and to donate the remainder of the profits to RAINN. She didn’t think that she or those who purchased the sweatshirt had bad intentions—“we all know how difficult it is to change things as individuals, [and] at the very least, we can show our support with a shirt,” she says. But she said that she has come to understand the potential ethical issues raised by “turning a story like this into something that is sold, even when the intention behind it is solidarity.” “Even though we don't know who Jane Doe is, and we don't need to know, this is still her story,” she says. “I have decided that stepping back from this particular design is the right thing for me to do.”