This TikTok Hack Makes it Looks Like You Can Hang 10 Shirts in 10 Seconds, So I Tried It (and Timed It)

Growing up can mean a lot of things. For me it’s accepting that no matter how old I am, no matter how mature or how organized, there will always be a chair in my room that is covered with clothes.

You probably have one too. It’s a black hole. But if there was a quick, 10-second process to hang up clothing in one go, I’d imagine I could get it under control.

That’s why this viral TikTok of a simple hack for hanging t-shirts intrigued me. When you first view the video, the idea seems pretty simple — you put your arm through the neck holes of a bunch of t-shirts at once, and then you grab the hook of a hanger with the same hand and pull the shirts over the hangers, one after another.

The video makes the entire process look like a breeze — and quick, even though the video is sped up. You might even be convinced you that you’ve been hanging shirts the wrong way your whole life. I figured that once I got the hang of this process, the time I spent putting away clothing (or more realistically, the size of the pile of clothing on my chair) would be cut in half. Another fact about growing up, though? You shouldn’t trust everything you see on the internet. 

When I first tried out this hack, I intently watched the video step by step, and realized just how sped up it is. Sure, she’s hanging up a dozen t-shirts really quickly — but that’s partly because the video is on 2x or 3x speed. And when I tried it out for myself? Sure, it worked. But it wasn’t faster than any other way I’ve put clothes on a hanger before. Not by a long shot.

I chose four t-shirts (making sure they were similar in material and style to the ones in the TikTok) and timed myself hanging them the traditional way versus the way in the TikTok. 

The traditional way — sticking the hanger through the neck hole of the t-shirt one end at a time — it took me roughly 40 seconds to hang four shirts. When I timed myself doing it the new TikTok way, it took me 55 seconds. Not quicker at all.

There is one bonus of the TikTok method. The new hack avoids a common downfall with putting away t-shirts: pulling at the neck hole. If you find yourself stretching out the necks of your t-shirts often, pulling at them to place them on the hanger might be the reason why, and this TikTok-approved method avoids that harm entirely. Plus, I imagine that if you practiced and perfected the TikTok technique, you could shrink your time down closer to the traditional method. 

This whole technique debate, though, skirts around one very important point: You should probably not be hanging up t-shirts at all. Like sweaters, t-shirts maintain their shape better when folded flat. Still, not everyone has a ton of available dresser space, so if hanging up your t-shirts does work better for you, the TikTok method of hanging may keep your t-shirts in good shape for longer than an alternative method. But will it be as quick as it looks on TikTok? Not so much.