Recently, one of my cousins passed away (F20). I’ll be using the name “A” for her.
Of course, we started planning A’s funeral pretty quickly, which is set for this Friday. That’s when my second cousin—let’s call her T—decided to post on social media asking who wanted a memorial shirt for A. Everyone who wanted one had to pay $20 upfront. And we were all under the impression we’d be wearing them to the funeral… or so we thought.
Monday rolls around (aka today), and T makes another post saying the shirts are not to be worn to the funeral. She said she’ll hand them out after the service so we can wear them when we go out to eat afterward.
After that, people in the family started blowing up each other’s phones—and it wasn’t just me. A lot of us were confused and kinda pissed. Like… we paid $20 for a shirt we can’t even wear to the one event it was made for?? Make it make sense.
so that’s when I got petty and left a comment on her post. I did use a fake account just so the situation wouldnt escalate outside of this situation.
I said something along the lines of: she’s not even immediate family to A, so who tf is she to be making rules? And that if people want to wear these shirts to the funeral, they should be able to. These aren’t just some basic tees—we bought them for that day specifically. If she didn’t want us to wear them, she should’ve said that in the beginning so we could’ve gone elsewhere to get them. Simple.
T replied saying, “A funeral is formal, you wear formal things.”
Which… okay, fair. But again—the rest of the family wants to wear them, and it’s not disrespectful. What is disrespectful is trying to police what people wear to their own family member’s funeral. It’s not a fancy church service or anything like that either—it’s literally gonna be casual.
So yeah, some family members who were mad basically told her:
“You can give us our money back and come to the funeral, or give us our money back and not come to the funeral. Either way, run us our money back. We’re not about to be told we can’t wear something we bought for this exact reason.”
So… AITA for calling her out (even if it was petty) and wanting to wear the shirt to my cousin’s funeral?
I know making a fake account and commenting wasn’t the most mature move (I’m an angry 18-year-old, give me a break), but I was just saying what everyone else was already thinking. The shirts were never pitched as ‘just for after,’ and honestly, it feels controlling as hell to switch things up last minute and try to tell people how to grieve.
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Recently, one of my cousins passed away (F20). I’ll be using the name “A” for her.
Of course, we started planning A’s funeral pretty quickly, which is set for this Friday. That’s when my second cousin—let’s call her T—decided to post on social media asking who wanted a memorial shirt for A. Everyone who wanted one had to pay $20 upfront. And we were all under the impression we’d be wearing them to the funeral… or so we thought.
Monday rolls around (aka today), and T makes another post saying the shirts are not to be worn to the funeral. She said she’ll hand them out after the service so we can wear them when we go out to eat afterward.
After that, people in the family started blowing up each other’s phones—and it wasn’t just me. A lot of us were confused and kinda pissed. Like… we paid $20 for a shirt we can’t even wear to the one event it was made for?? Make it make sense.
so that’s when I got petty and left a comment on her post. I did use a fake account just so the situation wouldnt escalate outside of this situation.
I said something along the lines of: she’s not even immediate family to A, so who tf is she to be making rules? And that if people want to wear these shirts to the funeral, they should be able to. These aren’t just some basic tees—we bought them for that day specifically. If she didn’t want us to wear them, she should’ve said that in the beginning so we could’ve gone elsewhere to get them. Simple.
T replied saying, “A funeral is formal, you wear formal things.”
Which… okay, fair. But again—the rest of the family wants to wear them, and it’s not disrespectful. What is disrespectful is trying to police what people wear to their own family member’s funeral. It’s not a fancy church service or anything like that either—it’s literally gonna be casual.
So yeah, some family members who were mad basically told her:
“You can give us our money back and come to the funeral, or give us our money back and not come to the funeral. Either way, run us our money back. We’re not about to be told we can’t wear something we bought for this exact reason.”
So… AITA for calling her out (even if it was petty) and wanting to wear the shirt to my cousin’s funeral?
I know making a fake account and commenting wasn’t the most mature move (I’m an angry 18-year-old, give me a break), but I was just saying what everyone else was already thinking. The shirts were never pitched as ‘just for after,’ and honestly, it feels controlling as hell to switch things up last minute and try to tell people how to grieve.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I made a fake account to comment on my cousin’s public post, calling her out for changing the plan about the memorial shirts last minute and saying people should still be allowed to wear them to the funeral.
This might make me the asshole because I didn’t confront her directly and instead chose a petty route, which added to the drama during a sensitive time. Im sure it upset her, and I get that it probably wasn’t the most respectful way to handle it, especially with emotions already high.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Wild problems sometimes demand wild solutions. NTA
Are there no elders in your family who could have had this convo with her? If so many of the family wanted to wear them, surely an older adult could have spoken up to her. And the fake account thing is just dumb bc most people don’t switch up how they speak so chances are she has an idea of who posted the comments. Say it with your chest next time
YTA. In fact I’d say everyone but T is the asshole.
T went out of her way to make memorial shirts for your cousin. She asked that you not were it to a funeral which is generally supposed to be a formal and somber occasion but rather wear it afterwards when you go to eat. Also it wouldn’t just be “one day” you’d still have the shirt to wear for the foreseeable future.
Not to mention you’re a coward hiding behind a fake account rather than just saying what you feel and taking accountability for it.
And seriously? Over a $20 shirt with a “loved one” on it? Y’all all sound selfish af and are just tarnishing your cousins memory with unnecessary drama
INFO: Is it at all possible that T jumped the gun on ordering the shirts, that after she collected the money and placed the order, a member of A’s immediate family contacted T and said “actually, we don’t want people to wear memorial t-shirts, we want Sunday best/more formal attire” and so T switched gears to honor their wishes?
Because that’s what this is sounding like to me. If this was a straight-up scam, T wouldn’t be offering to hand out the shirts at the service. And if she wanted to control the dress code, she wouldn’t have offered to organize the shirts in the first place.
The fact you recognize and are cognizant that you’re 18 and being petty, no, I won’t give you a break.
YTA.
Funerals are formal and so are wakes. There are exceptions to this but she’s not wrong. She’s organizing it, and you’re still getting the shirt. It’s not like she’s scamming people out of their money. Let it be and wear it at dinner.
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NTA
one thing that hasn’t been specified is how this funeral plans to go. I understand that typically yeah sure it’s a more formal attire event however that’s not 100% of the time
my BIL’s funeral we just asked people to wear blue cause it was his favorite color… his church even organized and got shirts made for him to which we would have worn if they were available for the day.
My grandmother didn’t even have a funeral (cause we were all kinda poor back then lol) but I know for a FACT she wouldn’t have given a single F to what people wore.
In the end, families get to make their own choices for how a funeral goes (unless planned by the person deceased in which case we should always honor those last wishes) and therefore unless direct family of the deceased you get to make no decision (either you or the cousins gatekeeping the shirts)
NTA stays my judgement
YTA – You knew you needed an anonymous account because you were going to be TA. I see bo issue with dressing formal for the funeral, t-shirts for the get together afterwards. This is how I’ve always seen it done. Stop making drama.
NTA. I have no idea why people are trying to say that all funerals are formal events. I’ve been to several funerals where memorial shirts were worn. In fact I’ve been to some where I didn’t even have to pay for the shirt. Your actions were petty though. Maybe next time don’t make a fake account to go off on T.
NAH
Your frustration is understandable, however…
I think if something is worth calling out, you keep your name attached to it. You seem to already know that was immature though.
There was no coordination of when the shirts were to be worn, including that they were supposed to be worn at the funeral. People assuming that was the case doesn’t mean T misled anyone.
I think in all likelihood, another family member involved in planning the funeral reached out to T and told them not to hand out the shirt until after; why else would they have a dog in this fight? What difference would it really make to them?
It’s also a bit rude of you to be calling out that she’s more distantly related. They’re still family and she’s still trying to do a nice thing to be a part of the funeral, even if it’s not being done in a way other people want. (At $20 a shirt and most likely rush ordered they’re definitely paying some of the cost out of their pocket to have these made.)
I think it’s a tacky level of petty that instead of anyone figuring out where this is coming from or trying to coordinate a change of plans to get them beforehand, they immediately went on the attack demanding refunds on the day of a funeral. 1) This seems like something that can be figured out later and your focus should be on honoring the dead and not petty family drama that can be figured out on Tuesday. 2) The shirts are already bought and going to be there, take them as a memento or wear them to lunch, but don’t reject the shirt and leave T with a trunk full of funeral mementos to make a point that you’re upset about the miscommunication.
I mean to be fair it is tacky to wear those shifts to a funeral. Wearing them afterwards makes a lot more sense. BUT she shouldn’t be banning ppl from wearing them.
Alot of you have never been to a chicano funeral and it shows
Seems like she heard it from plenty of family members, so what was the point of one more comment, online, anonymous?
Look inside and ask: did you set up this fake account and make this comment for Cousin T, or for yourself?
YTA, and A is right. A tshirt, even a commemorative one is not appropriate funeral attire. A offered shirts, she will deliver shirts. Too late to get a refund, and she never said they were for the funeral.
NTA. So they refused to give the shirts to those who wanted to wear them to the funeral, even under their formal clothes and wanted their money back because the shirts are being withheld til after? That seems fair to me. I do need to ask, who called you a asshole?
ESH.
In the specifics, everyone sucks because acting ruse when someone does something rude only makes everything worse.
Also and more importantly in the broader sense, everyone sucks because they’re doing things other than caring for their family. Everyone grieves differently – give them the space to do that. Don’t turn a funeral into a silly fight about a T shirt from EITHER side. Be there for and with your family. Talk about happy moments with your cousin. Distract each other with conversation about anything but her death.
Care less about bullshit and more about each other as people.
ESH
What your cousin did was sucky and tacky. She also doesn’t get to tell anyone what to wear. But calling her out escalated an already tense situation.
I would have just worn the shirt and been done with it if I wanted to be petty.