This fall, the hottest back-to-school gear ain't no books-it' ironic, nostalgic T-shirts! But schools are flooded with the same boring "vintage" designs: old-school bands, "distressed" classic logos, messages about making love to ninjas. Here are some designs that really get a jump on things by looking back at a more recent time that we all remember fondly: August 2006.
Can you believe we used to listen to this guy? America sure had some shitty taste in music back then, huh? Hall and Oates tees are hilarious, but even they didn't have anything as shitty as that "Bad Day" song. It' like back in August '06, we'd listen to ANYTHING, even if it sounded like a castrated, bi-polar, really, really untalented Billy Joel. Nowadays, you'd have to be a total moron to believe that being a hugely successful white recording artist in the richest country in the history of the planet facilitates a lot of "bad days."
Enigmatic. Misunderstood. Hero. Who do these three words call to mind? You guessed it-the falsely confessed killer of JonBenet Ramsey, John Mark Karr. Like Che Guevara-the sexy mercenary who personally ordered hundreds of executions-Karr was a revolutionary in more ways than one. Besides single-handedly bringing back the fully buttoned polo shirt look, he also made it cool again to be a terrifyingly creepy, globe-hopping, sex-changing pedophile.
All that bloodshed and no discernable reward-if that' not hilarious, what is? Hell, you probably left Lebanon with 5 or 10 confirmed kills before the UN mandated ceasefire prevented you from avenging the deaths of more of your countrymen. And what better way to commemorate your participation in that hellish cycle of violence than a zany, 100 percent cotton tee?
Like most people, you probably drank extremely, extremely heavily at your family' Labor Day cookout, because that' normal. And why not commemorate that day with a snazzy shirt? Especially the part when you vomited up a case of Miller High Life Light and seven hot dogs in your backyard in front of Grandma? It' ironic because you weren't always like that. Plus, you've changed a lot since then. You swear. Thanksgiving' going to be different. They'll see.
In August 2006, M. Night Shyamalan released his fifth film, Lady in The Water. And like The Sixth Sense (in which the main character was-gasp-actually dead), Unbreakable (in which the main character was-gasp-actually immortal) and Signs (in which a dying character' apparent hallucination was-gasp-actually a clairvoyant warning), this film also included a spooky, chilling twist: that Ron Howard' daughter is-gasp-actually smoking hot. Sadly, that disturbing revelation wasn't enough to carry the tremendously shitty film and now the only way we can give a shit about M. Night is in hindsight.
Hey, remember when Lindsay Lohan showed everyone her genitals and then did something else with her genitals after that? Those were the days! But that was a long time ago, and now she ranks about even with eating your own stool on the list of the average American' priorities. Combine that with the first rule of nostalgic T-shirt making (that it' cool to say you like something that used to suck, like Pabst Blue Ribbon or the 3/5 Clause), and you've got yourself one bitchin' tee.
Hey, look at how old this random logo from pop culture looks! Buy it!
In hindsight, a lot of really hilarious things happened back in August of '06. But none was more gut busting than Fidel Castro' trip to the hospital for what the Cuban government described as an acute intestinal crisis, with sustained bleeding. The unthinkable suffering that he had inflicted on his countrymen for almost 50 years was now back to plague him in the form of what many speculated was intestinal cancer. Now that is hilariously ironic, especially in the context of this wacky, familiar saying.
Speaking of insane bearded foreign presidents, remember Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What a turkey! Back in August he was all, "I'm gonna develop nuclear technology." Then he was like, "The Holocaust never happened." And then he goes, " I challenge George W. Bush to a fair, televised debate." Man, all that is pretty funny now that he' stopped enriching urani-what? Oh. Fuck. Gotta go.
Lohan shirt reminds me of my ever-neverending vexation about Big Star Sexy Stuff aka Superpoosey of {the decade or so that she lasts.}
I'm old and farty enough to remember being 29, aimlessly waiting in line and flipping through the only reading matter within reach - horribly, a People mag. I read a blurb in the back pages about a fifteen year old girl from the South who was wowing the country with her sweet, innocent blonde virginal image and supposedly great voice. Her name? Britney Spears. I thought, yeah right, I'm sure that's her given name, at least the last name had a porny suggestion factor of 11. Turned out I was wrong, but one day around the time I turned 40 I remember seeing that Leave Britney Alone video which made me spend my first 24 whole hours hating the internet just for making this possible, and not because I had any love, hate or even neutral feelings about the girl, woman, whatever. But I did notice the build 'em up, orgasm of stardom, and tear em down cycle always seems to last about 10 to 12 years and NO one is immune to it.
Of course, star struck 15 year old singers haven't the time spent alive nor the intellect to see the cycle and avoid what lies ahead - or if they do, and could any of them? they find the takedown worth the come-up.
What I want to know for no apparent reason, being 46, daughterless and so having no actual personal connect to the process, is what faction of Corporazi Incraporated At Large and Meta-fied (Beyond The Five Or Is It Four Now Media Corps) decides which Hot Young Teen Chick gets to be pulled from the ranks of America's high school dumps and tossed into a studio, have her voice technologically corrected, factory-production-lined from there into a makeup and plastic surgery compound where the same process is done to whatever imperfections are deemed changeable looks wise, then finally to the spin doctors who decide (with how much or just plain no input from girl) what her schtick - if any - will be? Britney's was to be a paedophile's wet dream and yet no one kicked up the hue and cry one might expect from a 15 year old girl on a trike in shorts embroidered with BABY on one side of an album and a room full of stuffed animals and a stuffed bra Britney on the other...
Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse were drug monsters, and that schtick didn't seem to wait all that long to peg to them, but Britney then tried imitating them, fearing - quite accurately - that after age 25 it's all downhill in poptart land.
None of these masturbation fodder pop divas are talented, their bands change every album, every town they play, so WHO decides who to Raise up and Tear Down, and on what basis? A guy with a job of scrolling through zillions of teen girl pics from the net (or in pre net times, perhaps high school yearbooks) and rating them, then sending the 10s to a focus group? It seems they're all interchangeable, particularly since between plastic and pixel surgery, hotties are produced, not born, more and more?
The Takedown is, I think, all about a weird friction force between the New Flesh anxious to take their turn, and old farts who enjoy vicariously tossing darts into the faces of the beauties they never were. It all bored me to tears until just a few moments ago when I began to wonder HOW the choice was made.
South Park did a great version of the process, a cross between "The Lottery" and the Brownie sacrifice in Neil Gaiman's American Gods novel. These seem more probable in some ways than anything remotely realistic, which is...just bizarre.
That was actually quite enjoyable... recent nostalgia T's, huh? Sadly, with the attention spans being developed today, it's not far off... if not already happening.
I saw a distressed tee for "Harry Potter and Philosophers Stone" at the mall. It's like " Oh man, your'e the OG watching harry potter movies in 2001, in friggen England!"
Lohan shirt reminds me of my ever-neverending vexation about Big Star Sexy Stuff aka Superpoosey of {the decade or so that she lasts.}
ReplyI'm old and farty enough to remember being 29, aimlessly waiting in line and flipping through the only reading matter within reach - horribly, a People mag. I read a blurb in the back pages about a fifteen year old girl from the South who was wowing the country with her sweet, innocent blonde virginal image and supposedly great voice. Her name? Britney Spears. I thought, yeah right, I'm sure that's her given name, at least the last name had a porny suggestion factor of 11. Turned out I was wrong, but one day around the time I turned 40 I remember seeing that Leave Britney Alone video which made me spend my first 24 whole hours hating the internet just for making this possible, and not because I had any love, hate or even neutral feelings about the girl, woman, whatever. But I did notice the build 'em up, orgasm of stardom, and tear em down cycle always seems to last about 10 to 12 years and NO one is immune to it.
Of course, star struck 15 year old singers haven't the time spent alive nor the intellect to see the cycle and avoid what lies ahead - or if they do, and could any of them? they find the takedown worth the come-up.
What I want to know for no apparent reason, being 46, daughterless and so having no actual personal connect to the process, is what faction of Corporazi Incraporated At Large and Meta-fied (Beyond The Five Or Is It Four Now Media Corps) decides which Hot Young Teen Chick gets to be pulled from the ranks of America's high school dumps and tossed into a studio, have her voice technologically corrected, factory-production-lined from there into a makeup and plastic surgery compound where the same process is done to whatever imperfections are deemed changeable looks wise, then finally to the spin doctors who decide (with how much or just plain no input from girl) what her schtick - if any - will be? Britney's was to be a paedophile's wet dream and yet no one kicked up the hue and cry one might expect from a 15 year old girl on a trike in shorts embroidered with BABY on one side of an album and a room full of stuffed animals and a stuffed bra Britney on the other...
Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse were drug monsters, and that schtick didn't seem to wait all that long to peg to them, but Britney then tried imitating them, fearing - quite accurately - that after age 25 it's all downhill in poptart land.
None of these masturbation fodder pop divas are talented, their bands change every album, every town they play, so WHO decides who to Raise up and Tear Down, and on what basis? A guy with a job of scrolling through zillions of teen girl pics from the net (or in pre net times, perhaps high school yearbooks) and rating them, then sending the 10s to a focus group? It seems they're all interchangeable, particularly since between plastic and pixel surgery, hotties are produced, not born, more and more?
The Takedown is, I think, all about a weird friction force between the New Flesh anxious to take their turn, and old farts who enjoy vicariously tossing darts into the faces of the beauties they never were. It all bored me to tears until just a few moments ago when I began to wonder HOW the choice was made.
South Park did a great version of the process, a cross between "The Lottery" and the Brownie sacrifice in Neil Gaiman's American Gods novel. These seem more probable in some ways than anything remotely realistic, which is...just bizarre.
I got a T-shirt ad at the end of the article. Hmm.
ReplyI actually kind of want that OBEY T-shirt.
ReplyMe too ...
That was actually quite enjoyable... recent nostalgia T's, huh? Sadly, with the attention spans being developed today, it's not far off... if not already happening.
ReplyI saw a distressed tee for "Harry Potter and Philosophers Stone" at the mall. It's like " Oh man, your'e the OG watching harry potter movies in 2001, in friggen England!"
ha ha, we still care about lindsay lohan. take THAT, science, history, and all forms of human civilization!
ReplyDidn't actually read article, looked boring, but felt the need to post because noone else had.
ReplySame here
What a douche