To start we have the BRAND NAME SHIRT:
The common American brand shirt comes in a seemingly endless variety of breeds, from the austere Nike to the playfully wacky Billabong to the gravely endangered Gecko Hawaii and Co-ed Naked. Whether they represent athletic shoes, surf or skate equipment or are advertising nothing but themselves, brand shirts make a bold and simple statement: "I am willing to forfeit my identity to build the mindshare of a company."
Certainly, none of the wearers of these robust specimens don them with this explicit thought in mind, but rather have entrenched their spirits so deeply into their American habitat that such considerations are nothing more than reflex. Brand shirts are often worn for the purpose of "fitting in," or at least making sure people know that you have some interest in some area of society.... and they do an admirable job; since our conscious minds tune out thousands of corporate logos every day, brand shirts are the most effective urban camouflage imaginable.
Next, one that is near and dear to my heart, THE BAND SHIRT
An interesting subspecies of the brand shirt is the band shirt, which is essentially the same beast but offers a comfortable illusion of individuality. Often found scuttling around college campuses and record stores, the band shirt allows its wearer a hollow identification with an artist of his choice. Say for instance, that the wearer wants to make sure everyone knows that they are a "hippie." Well, in the event that they don't have any burlap smocks available, a simple Phish tour shirt will do the trick nicely.
The peacock-like plumage of the band shirt presents a gaudy social display in which the wearer attempts to attract notice; his desperate hope is that someone, hopefully of the opposite sex, will acknowledge his taste in music. In my case I am still waiting for a girl to notice my Medeski Martin and Wood shirt.When that happens, and it probably never will, the wearer will feel famous and noticed, as if he's actually a member of the band. Maybe someday, a member of the band will see the wearer out and about and will be filled with a sense of meaning, knowing that they indeed have a fan.
Next, we have the JESUS PARODY SHIRT
Much in the same way that Our Lord was tortured upon the cross, so too do these shirts torture a stupid pun within an inch of its life. This unfortunate creature warps a recognizable brand logo or pop-culture slogan into some "clever" slice of theology and seemingly arbitrary reference to Jesus. The result is a near meaningless jumble of slogans and awkwardly-placed crucifixes. Though it is a skilled mimic, the Jesus parody is born without a sense of humor: "The Da Vinci Code" becomes "The DiVine God." The Mountain Dew logo becomes (Jesus) MEANT TO DIE (for you), "The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe," which is already Christian to begin with, becomes "Jesus The Lion of Judah." The YooHoo chocolate drink logo is mauled into "(it was) You Who (he died for)." The Jesus parody shirt is a strange beast, and naturalists have yet to determine its purpose.
Providing some wackiness is the WEED PARODY SHIRT
The only thing lamer than thinking that warping pop-culture into Christian references is edgy, is thinking that warping pop-culture into WEED references is edgy. However, this bizarre creature of a shirt is seen fairly commonly in the wild, especially among loser high school students and people who didn't go to college and hang around the mall all day using the money they make working at that kiosk that sells air-brushed baseball caps and Hip=Hop Looney Tunes shirts to buy a Big Mac in the food court. And, although these shirts may be similar to the Jesus parody shirt, there are some subtle differences that set it apart.
First, they're about weed instead of Jesus. One would think this was an obvious difference, but even a skilled naturalist may have to stare at a distorted product logo for quite some time before he can tell what it's promoting. Second, despite the brain-dulling properties of the substance they advertise, weed parodies are always cleverer than Jesus parodies. They still rank at a level of cleverness slightly below sticking your index finger through the fly of your pants and wiggling it around like a little penis, but they're generally about twice as clever as their religious counterparts. Substituting "Fillabong" for "Billabong" is much more natural parody than replacing "MySpace" with "(Jesus died for) My Space (in heaven)."
Regardless, due to the demographic that wears them, weed shirts are way more lame overall than Jesus shirts.
The CLEVER SHIRT
Nothing is worse than posing as edgy except possibly for posing as smart. These shirts make the wearer do just that, featuring such delightful images as a picture of Shakespeare featuring the phrase: "prose before hos." Ohhh see what the shirt did? it made a clever joke for smart people! This shirt serves as a surrogate personality for the wearer, and serves up pre-chewed and spit out bits of jokes derived by the shirt's maufacturer.
Finally, the worst of all shirts, THE "I'M AN IDIOT" SHIRT, aka THE BLACK SHIRT WITH WHITE WRITING
A parasite of a shirt that infects the weak and stupid, the idiot shirt prays upon the insecurities of its master and compounds his internal idiocy into something far more vile and pathetic. Generally worn by those unfortunate souls who are so far gone as to think wearing a shirt that essentially says "I look like an idiot and I beg for your acknowledgement" is somehow a powerful statement of individuality, these shirts are a depressing reminder that some people are unwilling to make even the feeblest grab at dignity. "You laugh because I'm different," these wretched shirts say. "I laugh because you're all the same." Translated into human speech, the phrase reads: "you laugh because I look like an idiot. I laugh because I am an idiot." This past week, I saw not one, two or three, but FOUR different people wearing a shirt that said "Genius by birth, slacker by choice." I wish I could have ripped those shirts off their pasty, flabby bodies and strangled them with their own lame t-shirt, but then I remembered that the shirt itself was God's way of preventing these people from every having children, so I left it at that.
PEACE LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING
No comments:
Post a Comment