Like millions of Americans, Kevin F. Sherry, Weinberg ’93, Medill ’95, has his own Web site.
It’s simple really – just photos and text. Yet when the Chicago Tribune published its “50 Best Web Sites” recently, Sherry’s was there, listed right alongside Wikipedia and craigslist.
“My reaction was ‘Take that, eBay!'” said Sherry, 34, a former DAILY columnist and Forum editor.
While Wikipedia and craigslist provide visitors with information, BadSweaterGuy.com provides them with humor. He models a different sweater in each photo – but you won’t find these at Abercrombie & Fitch.
“The idea was just to showcase these terrible sweaters that I actually owned and wore proudly and to put some awesome commentary with them,” he said. “There was never any thought that this was a mission to collect the worst sweaters in the world. It just turned out that way.”
Sherry bought most of the sweaters during high school from Marshalls with his 15 percent employee discount. When he moved to Los Angeles to work at a PR firm, he retired the sweaters to three garbage bags. Later, as he rifled through his closet and opened up the bags, Bad Sweater Guy and the Kevin F. Sherry Sweater Project were born. The site features 24 sweaters, some “terrible” and some not so bad.
“The commentary pretty much cuts to the core of what the sweater is all about,” he said. “It’s also the car-wreck mentality, where it’s just fun to look at something that’s awful.”
To build the site, Sherry enlisted the help of several friends from his years at Northwestern. The site was designed by Stephen Lynch, Medill ’95, former editor-in-chief of the DAILY and current features editor for the New York Post.
“I’m just kind of the pretty boy face of the site, (but) there’s a whole team of Northwestern alumni behind it,” he said.
Lynch and Eric Torbenson, Medill ’93, another former DAILY staffer and now a business writer for the Dallas Morning News, wrote the site’s funny commentary.
“This is Kevin’s show,” said Torbenson. “I don’t have the balls to get up on the Internet and wear those sweaters. He does apparently.”
Since the site took off in November 2004, Sherry estimates about 135,000 visitors have clicked on. It didn’t take long for newspapers, magazines and radio shows to take note. The site was featured on a Spanish-language Web site called “The Site of Unfortunate Sweaters.”
Sherry even scored a cameo in an independent movie production called “Long Term Relationship,” in which his single line was “Hey” – he “nailed it.” He has also been contacted by a nationally syndicated morning show, which wants to run a segment on the Bad Sweater Guy.
“We’re looking at book deals and anyone else who wants to have fun with Bad Sweater Guy,” he said, jokingly. “Half my friends are saying I should be a millionaire by now, but I think they’re vastly overestimating the profit potential in awful sweaters.”
In January 2005, a group of Boston law students hosted a “Bad Sweater Party.” Photos from the party were forwarded to the Bad Sweater Guy site, and they now have a guest sweater gallery with submitted fashion disasters.
Sherry also has a store on the Web site, where he offers calendars, T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with the Bad Sweater Guy name. He estimates he’s sold about a dozen calendars and a couple mugs, but no T-shirts yet. Sherry hasn’t attracted any advertisers, but he has big plans for when they come calling.
“Once we start charging, we’ll have the Bad Sweater Guy forum and Bad Sweater Guy dancers,” he said, laughing.
Reach Matt Presser at [email protected].
