Are Jersey Shore boardwalk shirts getting more wholesome?

Every summer, up and down the Jersey Shore’s most popular boardwalks, T-shirt merchants check the vibes, see what’s popular, and press it on cotton faster than anyone in Paris or Milan.

Store owners hold the scales, blindly, like Lady Justice’s cousin, Miss Capitalism: two shirts of Donald Trump’s “mug shot” positioned together, with “guilty” written on one shirt, “not guilty” on the other.

“No one is less worried about public opinion than people selling shirts on the boardwalk,” said Dan McQuade, the visual editor at Defector.com and a longtime Philadelphia journalist who’s explored Shore shirt culture for years. “The boardwalk market exists in its own world.”

Some of the trends come and go like the tide. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Wiz Khalifa “Taylor Gang” shirt anywhere on the boardwalk these days, or those blocky video game characters that once raked in billions.

“No, sorry, no more Minecraft,” a store manager told a young boy and his father in Wildwood.

On this sunny, warm day a few weeks before Memorial Day, Wildwood shirt merchants were aiming for the easy targets: the thousands who hit the raucous resort town that weekend for a drumline and band competition. Every store had a dozen or so offerings targeting the band kids, tie-dyed hoodies and tees with drummers marching across the shirts.

Store managers say shirts marketed to those ever-increasing events and festivals are the steadiest sellers, from wrestling tournaments to the firefighters weekend to the recent explosion of country music festivals.

» READ MORE: Do these 4 rest stops on the way to the Jersey Shore live up to the people they’re named after?

Many of the classic, raunchy Wildwood novelty tees the boardwalk is known for were holdovers from previous summers: anime characters, confessions of love for hot moms and dads, Tupac wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey, and a whole slew of marijuana-inspired fashions that seem less controversial by the day. But there were new players, hot off the press, like shirts featuring Ice Spice —”she’s like a rapper,” one shirt seller said — and walking billboards for Prime Hydration Drink, which various store employees described as a “nutritional thing” or “like a Gatorade.”

“You know Jake Paul from YouTube? I think it’s his thing,” one store manager said.

Luckily, this gumshoe reporter is deeply sourced in the retail business world.

“It’s a drink by Logan Paul,” my daughter, 18, texted me.

Oddly, none of the stores have capitalized on early 2023′s biggest Jersey Shore controversy: wind energy. There wasn’t a “Save the Whales” shirt to be found up and down the boards.

“It’s still early,” said McQuade. “Unless a famous person died or a meme takes over, it takes time.”

An ever odder, shockingly wholesome trend has emerged, both in Ocean City and Wildwood, considering the war on teenagers who gather in great numbers there. Shirt sellers in both resort towns say their biggest sellers, hands down, are tourist-themed shirts, with the town names in a chunky, ‘70s-style font, and a crucial image.

“It has to have the hibiscus flower on it,” seller Shawn Keoughan, 24, said in Wildwood. “They really took off last summer and it’s already hot right now already this year.”

In Ocean City, where modern shirts touting the resort’s name are more common than in Wildwood, Luliia Lobunets at the Shirt Shack said teens there want the same thing: the hippie font and that flower.

“The flower is key,” Lobunets said. “They are a top seller.”

Keoughan said anime characters are still hot, and above him, a few tattooed Disney princesses brandishing handguns remained. He expects Donald Trump shirts to continue to sell at a steady pace. Some feature Trump with bulging biceps; another depicts him in a tropical shirt with a modern, high and tight haircut.

One shirt at Keoughan’s store simply said “Elon Musk 2024.”

“The political stuff isn’t as big as it used to be but with the election coming I think it might start picking up again.”

In the Ocean City store selling the dueling Donald Trump shirts, an employee who asked not to be identified said the “not guilty” shirts have outsold the “guilty” shirts by a big margin.

“In fact, I think we just sold our first ‘guilty’ shirt this weekend,” the woman said.

In Wildwood, shops were still awash in the seemingly offensive shirts that will always make teen boys giggle. A glut of booty shorts remain, though you’re unlikely to see anyone wearing them. A recent, clever booty short trend has “Thick fil A” emblazoned across the cheeks, in a font that mimics, copyrights-be-damned, the chicken sandwich peddler.

“The kids always get a kick out of the shorts, but they’re obviously not buying,” said Andrew Brown, a shirt shop employee from New York. “They’re always trying to touch the butt.”