Threadless was the subject of the Times column Consumed, Mass Appeal, which discusses the workings of the Threadless tee-ocracy and its appeal:

"The casual viewer of Threadless.com cannot help being struck by the surprising degree of consistency — maybe even similarity — in the designs. “It’s a barometer of what’s going on in art and design right now,” Kalmikoff suggests. He likens it to a school of fish moving in a particular direction until a new leader suddenly emerges, everything shifts in that direction and somehow the crowd arrives at something close to an aesthetic."