2011.12.07 Text 13 notes

  1. On T-Shirts and Our Changing Culture

    On certain days, it takes me a significant amount of time to get dressed. Not because I am some sort of stickler for staying color-coordinated or anything—as if I have some sense of fashion— but because I tend to wear t-shirts that have stuff on them. In saying “stuff” I mean comic characters, or the name of a band, or pop culture icons. While I type this post, I’m wearing a Ren & Stimpy shirt.

    Now I’m going to justify my long moments at my dresser to you, Internet.

    You may not be well-versed in the origins of early punk rock bands. If you are not, I forgive you. If you are, you probably know this story, so bear with me. I’ll make it brief.

    John Lydon, once known by the stage name Johnny Rotten, owned a Pink Floyd shirt that he doctored. He wrote the words “I HATE” above Pink Floyd’s name, and marked over the eyes of the band members. While I myself enjoy Pink Floyd, I think Lydon’s doing this is absolutely brilliant. Largely because of scribbling on his t-shirt, Lydon was asked to be the singer for the Sex Pistols (although his ability not to sing was also part of it). If you simplify it, the Sex Pistols helped take punk rock into public consciousness because Lydon picked that shirt, that day.

    That story is cool and all (well, at least I think so), but of course you’d drum up some attention wearing a somewhat controversial opinion on your chest. I use that anecdote to point towards something bigger.

    New forms and methods of interacting with and consuming culture are giving us more choices for what sort of television show, song, book, or whatever else we enjoy. Tastes are getting less and less uniform with the internet and television so full of different options. While this theoretically allows us to maximize our satisfaction by finding more of exactly what we want, our more defined tastes are making our interests overlap less and less.

    A Chuck Klosterman article published in Esquire about the death of Johnny Carson hinges upon this idea. In the article, Klosterman notes: “In the short term, choice improves our lives, and we’re completely aware of that. The rub is that—over time—choice isolates us. We have fewer communal experiences, and that makes us feel alienated and alone.” There’s no one like Johnny Carson these days, because we have Leno, Fallon, O’Brien, Letterman, Stewart, and Colbert. This idea makes me worry just a little.

    So I wear t-shirts with stuff on them in hopes that I will find others who may remark on them. If I can find people who share some of my taste in culture and can hold a conversation, I’m happy to make their acquaintance. I made a friend in my Comparative Politics class mostly because I commented on her Homestuck shirt. I love wearing my Rejected shirt, because I love blathering on to people about how great Don Hertzfeldt is, and I take every chance I can to do so.

    I like talking to and meeting people, especially because of how much of a recluse college has made me. So I spend a lot of time at my dresser in the morning, in order to pick the right shirt as an attempt to find opportunities to connect with others in a way to combat the separation slowly imposed on us by our rapidly evolving popular culture.

    Now once I’m able to get a shirt with that last sentence on it… I’ll provoke even more nerdy conversations!