How Trump's Yosemite slipup turned a Jewish history museum's T-shirt into an 'astronomical' best seller
'All of our ears just shot straight up and our eyeballs popped out,' museum says of Trump blunder
One of Donald Trump's latest gaffes has been lucrative for the National Museum of American Jewish History.
After the U.S. president mispronounced California's Yosemite National Park as "Yo Semite" last week during a speech, sales of a T-shirt bearing the same phrase at the Philadelphia-based museum jumped.
"As soon as we heard Yo-Semite, all of our ears just shot straight up and our eyeballs popped out," said Emily August, communications director for the museum.
"Almost immediately after the mispronunciation happened, and we put the shirt online, we knew that we were in for a wild ride."
The museum, which aims to preserve and celebrate the history of the American Jewish community, has sold the shirt for nearly a decade, and during its time on the museum's shelves, it has been a "steady performer," August said. But since Trump's blunder, sales of the T-shirt have outpaced the store's previous best seller by 900 per cent, she says.
"It's just been astronomical," August told Day 6.
Gaze upon Yo-semite’s towering Sequoias with our "Yo Semite" t-shirt! 😉🌲 Get 'em while they're hot: <a href="https://t.co/PGNaXqbiwi">https://t.co/PGNaXqbiwi</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Yosemite?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Yosemite</a> <a href="https://t.co/TXxs5nJ1oR">pic.twitter.com/TXxs5nJ1oR</a>
—@NMAJHHowever, it's not the first time the T-shirt has become popular unexpectedly.
"Anytime, historically, that Yosemite National Park had been in the news for any reason ... there was always this little spike in shirt sales," August said.
For example, when Apple Inc. released the Yosemite version of its computer operating system, Mac OS, in 2017, interest in the shirt grew.
History of the shirt
Digital media creator Sarah Lefton designed the T-shirt in 2004 while working in marketing at a summer camp in Yosemite National Park.
"One of my responsibilities was making all the fun apparel that you bought in the camp canteen," she told Day 6.
"A joke around camp was that we were in yo-suh-mite ... it was just a funny way to say the name of the park."
She soon came to realize that there was an alternate pronunciation, closer to Trump's — yo, Semite.
"Us being a Jewish camp, it was just the perfect joke, and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world — and as a merch person, I immediately thought to put it on a T-shirt," she said.
When she began wearing the T-shirt around her home city of San Francisco, it sparked interest and she started selling them online.
"Next thing you knew, I had more T-shirt ideas and I ran a whole T-shirt business for years." Now, she sells the "Yo Semite" shirt directly to the National Museum of American Jewish History for their gift shop.
That the T-shirt is linked to the experience of Jewish summer camp is integral to the American Jewish community, August said.
"We talk about Jewish summer camp in our museum's core exhibition and how for a lot of American Jews, they formed their Jewish identity through their summer camping experiences."
"There is this layered meaning to the shirt for us."
The boost in sales comes at a needed time for the museum with the coronavirus pandemic putting a dent in their income.
August says that while the museum hosted some digital content, making the transition to virtual programming a bit easier, "arts and culture, generally, is struggling financially."
"To have a phenomenon like the Yo Semite shirt come at this moment and bring the laughter and excitement — and yes, some income — is really meaningful and we're so grateful."
Written by Jason Vermes. Produced by Laurie Allen.
