Teen Scene: The Brand That Speaks Internet

Erin Yogasundram, 23, sells clothes that speak internet, and her teenage buyers think she's totally BAE AF.

-  Alexis Swerdloff

If you haven’t heard of Shop Jeen, that’s because you’re not a 19-year-old with pastel-pink hair and an iPhone plastered in emoji stickers. Crop tops are probably not your favorite separate, and four-inch platform sneakers are not your go-to footwear. The Generation Z–whispering web shop, founded three years ago by a New Yorker named Erin Yogasundram, now 23, from her George Washington University dorm room, should come with a seizure warning—and maybe even a trigger warning. Type in shopjeen.com, and a Japanese music video for a band called Ladybaby might automatically start blasting, while the home page quivers with gifs of LED-lit high-tops and tank tops that say ask your boyfriend how my ass taste. This is what cool looks like right now for a particular subset of 14-to-22-year-olds. It’s a visual language that’s basically early internet clip art on crack—like the work of artists Cory Arcangel and Ryan Trecartin brought to the masses via Tumblr, co-opted by the store VFiles, and now sold to young people in the form of $32 hats that say yes, daddy?

The site sells a mix of products from its new in-house line Netgear90 and like-minded streetwear brands—O-Mighty, Huf, Married to the Mob—plus junky knickknacks like glitter iPhone cases and glow-in-the-dark toilet paper. The effect is a twisted combination of a vintage Oriental Trading catalogue, some sort of high-concept New Museum Triennial commission, and one of those stores on Canal Street that sells fuck you you fucking fuck T-shirts. Even in the grand tradition of stores for young people whose appeal is totally lost on grown-ups (Delia’s, Limited Too, Hot Topic, Spencer’s), Shop Jeen feels particularly designed to rankle adults. (See, for example, a $12 thong that reads, simply, anal?)