For some reason, it has suddenly become a need to wear a band t-shirt to be ‘socially acceptable’. No. Don’t. Just stop. You should only wear a band t-shirt if you like the band, and no it’s not acceptable just to wear them because you ‘know of’ the band.
The classic black Nirvana t-shirt seems to be everyone’s victim when it comes to wearing band t-shirts. I do not want to walk down a high-street and see a group of 12 year old girls wearing the t-shirt because they think it’s cool. I’d like to go back to the day when it was ‘uncool’ to wear band t-shirts, so that only the people who really liked the bands would wear them. Now, you see various band t-shirts floating around in high-street shops. Gone are the days that you had to search hard to find the merchandise, let alone actually attending the concert to get them.
The up rise of the ‘Grunge’ and ‘Hipster’ culture have attributed to this widely, where, in particular, people between the ages of 13-16 want to appear ‘individual’, but in an attempt to do this, they end up looking like every other person who wants to look ‘individual’. It’s a different story completely when it’s a pop band; the clue is in the name. But when you just select a random artist such as Green Day because you’ve seen others wear a Green Day t-shirt, it is completely unacceptable.
The whole point of wearing a band t-shirt is to express your love for their music, not as a fashion statement. Unfortunately, bands are becoming a fashion statement rather than people liking them for their music. Apparently, you’re cool if you like Nirvana, Green Day, Joy Division, AD/DC or Guns N Roses, hence why these t-shirts now appear in popular high-street shops such as Topshop and Primark. People are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money on band merchandise for a band they don’t even like, all for the sacrifice of appearing cool to their peers.
People who genuinely like the bands now feel like they can’t wear their t-shirts that they bought while seeing the band live or that they saved up for a long time for in fear of being ridiculed for trying to be a ‘hipster’ or ‘individual’, and it’s all down to those who flaunt band merchandise as a fashion statement. Bands and Artists are not there for you to gain social status; they are there for the entertainment of those who truly enjoy their music. If you listen to the band then wear their merch, that’s perfectly acceptable and fair enough.
Take band merch out of high-street shops to discourage people wearing it for fashion purposes only, or simply higher the price, because those who truly like the bands have had years’ worth of experience of searching all over the internet for merch, so they won’t have a problem with going back to doing it that way, one would assume.
(originally posted 22nd January 2015 www.luna-llena.co.uk)
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