In 2002, Britney Spears was lauded for wearing a “Dump Him” T-shirt in the weeks following her break-up with Justin Timberlake, during which he had reportedly moved on with Alyssa Milano.

Lindsay Lohan, a fellow fixture of the early 00s tabloid culture, sported a fitted T-shirt that read “Skinny Bitch”, which was interpreted as a riposte to the headlines deeming her too thin. Madonna hit back at the press’s obsession with her Kabbalah religion by sporting a T-shirt reading “Cult Member” when leaving its LA centre in 2004, while Katy Perry used a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Nasty Woman” on it as she joined presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in 2016.

“Slogans immediately identify us with a particular social group and dissociate us from other groups” Mair explains. “This sense of belonging gives us pride and is described in social psychology through the theory of social cohesion.”

The power in clothes is channelled through slogans, suggests Mair, as they are virtually impossible to overanalyse. “Whatever our slogans says, it eases communication and reduces the risk of misunderstanding.”

Somewhere lining the rail of a store somewhere, we don’t doubt there’s a T-shirt for that too.

From Dump Him to Stop Being Desperate: the rise of the clapback T-shirt