I found this shirt in the mall a few weeks ago and I’ve also seen quite a few people out and about wearing it here in Singapore.
Anyone who has used he internet much has been exposed to “smilies”. They’re cute icons used to express an emotion in chat. Sometimes they’re called emoticons.
Given that, what does this shirt say? A dead smiley = “CHEER YOU UP”? So, death is the way to be cheered up then is it?
Either people are blissfully unaware of what the smiley means, or there’s just some meaning behind this that I’m totally missing. It’s not uncommon for Asians who have poor English language ability to wear a shirt with something totally screwy on it, but this should have been pretty easy to steer clear of.
Bradley Farless 
It is a bit odd, and I'm seeing it more and more. I find it hard to believe that there are that many Singaporeans who don't understand the meaning behind the shirt, so I'm wondering if maybe it's based on a show or game or that smiley has a different meaning to Chinese, and I'm totally missing the point.I just don't see how it's fun to wear a shirt that says death is the way to cheer you up.
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Haha, some Singaporeans have no idea that the words on their shirts have poor grammar and spelling and stuff. Which is why as a Singaporean, I feel embarrassed when I see this.
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I see a lot of people in Singapore wearing shirts that seem off-color or have bad English on them and I wonder the same thing. Do they know what it really means or do they just think it's cool because it has some English words on it?Too bad it's not culturally acceptable to just walk around taking photos of people. Ha ha ha! I saw one a few days ago that said something like: “My dad taught me well how to say this rhyme.” I was thinking… 'That doesn't rhyme. I don't get it.'
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There was this time we spotted an old lady wearing a shirt that said “I love to mast?rb???” (the actual word, not with the questions marks) across her chest. Made us wonder, did she know what that meant?
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