Saturday, November 2

Old Navy Tee Features Inaccurate Map of Chicago, Social Media Overreacts

A new graphic tee from Old Navy features a map of old Chicago neighborhoods, but its less-than-accurate design has earned it some scorn on social media.

The shirt depicts such neighborhoods as Austin and Lincoln Park as being right next to each other, when in reality they’re not at all. Furthermore, it doesn’t even include Pilsen, Rogers Park, or Logan Square. Worse, the shirt also features non-existent neighborhoods, too.

One Twitter user, @JenniferH, tweeted a photo of the shirt with a caption that read, “most inaccurate Chicago neighborhood map ever.”

However, social media users do tend to blow things out of proportion. As @GSElevator once tweeted, “For every action, there’s a social media overreaction.”

One Old Navy shopper paused to find her own neighborhood, Hyde Park, on the shirt, but discovered that it was in the wrong location. She told the Chicago Tribune that if it hadn’t been for all the hubbub on social media over the map’s inaccuracies, “I probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Old Navy’s angle seems to be that it is more of an artistic drawing but to that point they could have better depicted the geography,” says Elise Harding of Tee Compressed. “There have been a few other times that Old Navy hasn’t gotten it right with typos, etc and they’ve suffered the back lash.”

In its own defense, Old Navy stated what some assumed as obvious, saying that the shirt wasn’t meant to be a representation of the city.

“From time to time, Old Navy offers limited, local product designed for and sold at specific locations,” said an Old Navy Spokesperson. “The t-shirt depicting Chicago neighborhoods, sold only at our State Street store, is intended to be an artistic expression and not a direct representation of a Chicago-area map.”

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