The Rice University Neologisms Database

fame and celebrity associated with one’s face printed on many t-shirts, bringing a noted personality to eternal prominence. T-shirtification reflects the act of “t-shirtifying” in which someone or something is made famous by being plastered on many t-shirts. In this case, the picture of Che Guevara is printed on many shirts, giving him lasting legacy and fame. The ending -ification is reflective of words like identification and classification which both are noun forms of their respective verb roots. The writer sought to express Che Guevara’s eminent fame and prominence without using the standard words of fame and celebrity. The author believes that Che Guevara has an infamous, lasting legacy in history that cannot be described by the standard words in the English vernacular. The author apparently thinks that t-shirts can measure one’s fame. In effect, t-shirts are a measure of popularity. For example, other notable personalities like Jimi Hendrix are immortalized in time because of their prevalence on t-shirts. Because there is a finite word stock that lacks a precise word for fame resulting from t-shirts, the author felt compelled to add suffixes to the word t-shirt so he could articulate his thoughts. These suffixes result in a semantic shift away from the standard idea of a t-shirt being a garment woven out of cotton into a gateway to fame and legacy.