Today, I am going to give all of you a very important message. In this week's column, I address a problem that you can help solve. Seriously, this time, it is almost like I'm Captain Planet or something. The power is yours, baby.
I am sure you've seen them. You go to college, after all. Maybe there's a kid in your recitation with one. Maybe a friend or roommate has one. Maybe (gasp!) you have one. Maybe you have two (double gasp!). Or three (can you triple gasp?). But whatever the case may be, you will know what I'm talking about.
And what is that exactly? Those "humor" T-shirts. The ones with innocent looking cartoons often accompanying a movie quote or a pun (often dirty, involving a geographic location, or both). Come on, you know what I'm talking about. "Come on feel the Illinois" or "This Sucks" with (get this) a vacuum cleaner.
At first these shirts seemed innocuous, perhaps even mildly (high emphasis on that) clever. They brought a feeble smile to your face for about two seconds in the middle of a lecture about Descartes, and that was the end of it. Innocent enough, right? I suppose it would be, except that was not the end of it.
Ask yourself, dear reader, what happens when you keep seeing that shirt? Are you supposed to smile each time you see it out of mere courtesy? But, if that's the case, what happens if you turn away from the person for a moment? Perhaps the proper code of conduct would be every time that your eyes catch the "wittily ironic" T-shirt, you should smile or give one of those laughs that are not so much laughs as a little air escaping through clenched teeth. That would make you seem like a polite, socially adept sort of a person. Unless the person thought you were being sarcastic (and most likely you would start to get sarcastic after the 10th time of having to do such in an hour).
Even if that were not the case, the constant semi-laughs could begin to bother the wearer of the shirt anyway. Of course you can say that, in all fairness, they asked for it. I would be inclined to agree with you. Their choice of shirt, in theory, shows that they are actively seeking a response of amusement.
As for the proper code of conduct when one blinks ... actually, let's not go into that. I only have about 800 words to say this, after all.
Now, while this advice may calm your fears of social awkwardness (but, let's face it, if you got this far into reading this article, you will never be completely cured), the solution still does not address the problem of the shirt itself. In fact, all that this tactic would really do is make you an enabler.
Your laughter would condone these apparently hip, droll and ironic shirts. Yes, ironic. They have to be, don't they? I mean, the cartoons look so cute and they're not saying anything truly inappropriate, now are they?
While this may have been the case back in the early days, the mass spread of this apparel has killed any irony. You no longer appear different for wearing this shirt, and your indie-side is most definitely not expressed. You are just becoming another buyer into mass-marketed-counterculture. To make matters even worse, you're looking like a complete moron as you do so.
Speaking about looking dumb, let me just address one final thing before I leave you. Even if you completely disagree with everything I have said so far, please listen to this one plea: stop with the state shirts. Or at least shirts from states that you do not hail from or went to for an extended vacation.
Yes, we all know the states' names can be used to create all types of puns. I personally am a fan of "What did Delaware? A New Jersey." Also, twisting the names "Mississippi" and "Minnesota" around to come up with the image of a woman drinking a small carbonated beverage can be sort of amusing as well. But to be quite frank, you look stupid if you're wearing an Arkansas shirt and can't even name a city in it or point it out on the map. And seriously, at the end of the day, it's just a drawing of a state. It ain't all that attractive.
So please, reader, I may not be a fashion columnist, but I still advise you to wear with caution. We all have such a short time here at Tufts University. Why would you ever want to spend it looking like a complete tool?
Devin Toohey is a sophomore majoring in classics and English. He can be reached at
Devin.Toohey@tufts.edu.
