Gymnast and all-around badass Simone Biles gifted Twitter with something to tweet about last week when she shut down Dancing With The Stars host Tom Bergeron's comment about why she wasn't smiling as people complimented her. "I was waiting for you to smile at some of the compliments. You didn't," Bergeron said before shoving the mic in her face. With a shrug, Biles replied, "Smiling doesn't win you gold medals, and Twitter went wild. Now, Biles is getting the last laugh.
Biles posted a photo on Snapchat of a tank top bearing that saying, so now that phrase can live on in our closets forever. For starters, the tank could easily be used as motivational workout gear, or a fine addition to your growing collection of feminist tees that've been circling the industry since last Fashion Week. But, either way, what a clever way to making your clapback even more powerful, with just a single tee. Because it's true — smiling doesn't get you everywhere, but hard work and determination does.
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Several female celebrities precede Biles when it comes to getting flak for refusing to smile. Nearly two years ago, actress Rowan Blanchard spoke out on Twitter in response to commenters urging her to smile more in pictures, saying "I post on my Instagram what I like :) if I want to smile I will!! Nothing more than that. I wish people would stop reading into things." Broad City tackled the misogynistic "you should smile more" topic, also in 2015, with one of the best fake smiles in television history.
No word yet on where we can cop one of these brilliant shirts, but there's already a ton of Simone Biles merch to go around if you scour Google. And if this was just one of those one-off, very limited edition kind of things, we're all for making our own. Because, yeah — let's say it again for the people in the back — smiling doesn't win you gold medals. Wear and repeat.
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