Can We Believe This Threadless Clone? Not Really, No.

We know you really want to skip down below to all of Stephanie and Alissa’s great coverage of Art Basel, so this writer will keep his posts short, sweet and as instantly approachable as possible. Up first comes this: the site Can U Believe It? It’s an online t-shirt competition that prints submissions, which are voted on by users of the site. Sound familiar? Well, yes, it’s exactly like Threadless. What’s more, their site looks like it spent a couple of days reading a book we just made up called “How to Make Your Site Look A Lot Like Threadless’.” The trick here is that it’s a Christian site, with religious-themed-only designs. We’re not bashing anyone’s faith here, but rare is the day when a similar-looking stand-in is anywhere near as good as the original. Why not just make your own, unique t-shirt shop? Was this really something the Christian community was desperate for? They had specific demands that it look so similar? And one more: is Threadless’ merchandise really that risque for a religiously conservative base? We’re just confused.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.