This Stranger Things shirt is a hit… in China

While officially unavailable in China, the Netflix show has a cult following

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Doesn’t matter if it’s the real thing, people just want an Eleven shirt. (Picture: Taobao)

Published: 6:59pm, 5 Jul 2019Updated: 9:08am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

It’s reasonable to suspect that a show like Stranger Things would have trouble connecting with viewers in China. It’s chock full of Western pop culture references from the ‘80s, ripped from cinema, old-school arcade games and other elements of pre-internet life -- like riding around town in a trucker hat with your friends on bikes. It’s the perfect nostalgia kick for anyone who can remember 1980s America.

Needless to say, Stranger Things is not a mega hit in China like it is in the US. Even so, the show has garnered a surprisingly sizable following in the country. And Chinese millennials appear to be quite taken with a shirt featuring Stranger Things imagery.

The next time you’re in China, don’t be surprised if you see people rocking a Ih Nom Uh Nit t-shirt featuring the giant face of the character Eleven with her nose bleeding. The shirt is all over Taobao, Alibaba’s ecommerce platform, where orders for the shirt are piling up. The designer brand shirt has even become something of a status symbol among Chinese millennials.

(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba, the owner of Taobao.)

You might be wondering why a shirt from Ih Nom Uh Nit, a designer streetwear brand, has exploded on Taobao. Well, as you might suspect, many are likely knock-offs of the original, as some of the shirts can be found for less than US$5.