I’ve seen examples that were simply thoughtless jokes from people who don’t think things through. “Rehab is for quitters” on high school classmates when we were maybe 16. Just no concept of what they were saying and it seemed funny to an adolescent mind.

I’ve also seen people trying to convince themselves they didn’t have a serious problem and joking about it. Couple weeks back I went into a pub for lunch with coworkers and there was a guy sitting at the bar alone drinking the hard stuff. Shirt read “Shut up liver. You’re fine.” I can imagine he actually has liver pains and is in denial about just how much trouble he’s in if he doesn’t do some very hard work very soon.

I’ve also seen the inflammatory “I’m a jackass and think I’m upsetting people, but all I’m doing is showing the world I’m a jackass” shirts. Saw a shirt a couple months back that read something like “Vegetarian: Ancient word meaning village moron who can’t hunt, fish, and is too weak to raise cattle.” He was probably 350lbs and was breathing heavy from walking from a parking garage to the bottom of an escalator. He probably had a little of the second example going on as well.