People may or may not notice t-shirts, but the people wearing the t-shirt assume they're going to be noticed. It's a subtle, possibly not-entirely-conscious dec

People may or may not notice t-shirts, but the people wearing the t-shirt assume they're going to be noticed. It's a subtle, possibly not-entirely-conscious decision. But it's a decision. The idea is that people wear t-shirts as signifiers/broadcasters of their self identity. They don't necessarily think of socks the same way -- partially because they're not thinking socks will be seen, and partially because it's just not an ingrained psychological pattern. I'm not saying novelty socks can't happen, and certainly there are a few fashion labels making a pretty good buck off of socks with fun, quirky, and unique designs. That's sort of an emerging space in the apparel business, actually. But the use case is somewhat different from the novelty t-shirt market.