OpISIS shirt from Urban Ultra Clothing

It’s official: Anonymous is trendy!

Between #OpISIS scoring more #TANGODOWNS than the coalition against ISIS in the Middle East, #OpSafeWinter saving lives of the homeless here at home, and recent other high profile ops, Anonymous is having a very tangible moment.

We, as always, were keeping an eye on Anonymous when we came across the very Fawksy Vaxcon sweatshirt and tee from Urban Ultra Clothing, an edgy one-man web shop out of Reading, Pennsylvania.

The next day, the web shop was gone. Poof.

We, being shrinking violets, contacted the company via Facebook and basically bitched them out, as we had a lovely article featuring the sweatshirt all ready to go and then, bam, no website. No website, no article. Turned out that contact was incentive enough for him to put the site back online, we ran our article, and bang! Eighteen sweaters sold.

And a life, changed.

The Urban Ultra shop-runner told us that those sales inspired him not to give up on the webshop, and to emulate Anonymous by making sure to support a good cause with the sales. As a result, from now until Christmas Day, 20% of all sales will go to the Animal Rescue League of Berks County.

Urban Ultra didn’t even start out as a business in the first place, just a hobby. “I’ve actually been printing things just for a group from the Reading, PA area that became enthralled in supporting the Philadelphia Union,” he told us. The group that I am with is very tight and I always had new shirts for us, we call ourselves the Red City SOBs. I became very interested in Anonymous and printed a few Guy Fawkes shirts and everyone wanted one.

Urban Ultra Infidel Black Tee

“Wanted to do an ugly sweater for myself, because I always liked to mess around in the print shop and make one of a kind shirts. The Xmas sweater V4xmas took me about 3 hours. Each “V” cross stitch pattern that is actually a V, was placed individually to give it the pattern. I always liked to design with hidden symbols.”

“The soccer supporters group was founded on charity and actually has a documentary of how it all started and all they give back to the city of Chester. Help Kick Hunger is the group’s biggest charity and is absolutely amazing. We have fundraisers going on constantly and thought it was only right to tie in a charity to this. And I love dogs!”

Anonymous Christmas sweatshirt

The mini-flood of orders for the V4xmas shirt convinced him there was more potential than he’d thought at the point he took the site down. “Probably wouldn’t even have the site up if you hadn’t reached out to me,” he told us.

“The response of people, especially from the Anonymous community has brought me out of an uninspired abyss, and I am more inspired than ever. The response has been overwhelming. It’s my mission now to not waste this opportunity. It’s an honor to know people want to rock some UU gear, but when I hand-deliver envelopes to the Berks ARL that is what it’s all about. Hoping that I can keep helping in my own little way in this crazy World and hopefully this is just the beginning.

It’s a rather rocky start. Inspiration is one thing: sales are another.

“I haven’t made one sale since I announced the 20% donation. But I promise you this much, I will hand deliver a check every day until Christmas for the money raised. I also made shipping cheaper in the store. If all goes well and the Anonymous community accepts me and my designs I will start the day after Christmas to donate to another charity. I just wanted to donate to BERKS Animal Rescue first because they are such a great shelter and need every penny to keep all of those dogs alive long enough to be adopted. I will never give any less than 20% I promise you that. My heart is in this 110%.”

Also, FCK ISIS.

Urban Ultra Fuck ISIS tee

Categories: Activism, Anonymous, Geek, Gifts, Hackers, Hacktivism, Interviews, ISIS, OpISIS