Just found something that needs to be shared. It's copied almost exactly from how it was written by a Mr. Matthew Howell at Facebook:
Today we salute you, Mr. Collar Putter Upper. You, bedecked in popped collar, teach us that we no longer have to live with a cold back of the neck. Sure, your pink alligator polo may look feminine to some, but not to the 17 other frat guys wearing the same thing at the bar. Where others may see thoughtless fashion conformity, you preach a higher gospel. You preach of a world where it's okay for a man to go tanning. You ask, "Why can't we wear make-up, and use shampoo with lavender essence?" So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, Mr. Abercrombie (or is it Fitch?), because we all know, when we really need a piece of gum, you might have one... in your man purse.
So, in short, if you pop your collar (except when putting on a tie), you are a woman. And do you really want to be paid 75% wages? Didn't think so.
(I'm looking at you, Eric. Be a man! Leave 'er down!)
(And it's okay to wear pink shirts so long as they are not popped.)
And now back to writing a French thing! Hasta la byebye!
Today we salute you, Mr. Collar Putter Upper. You, bedecked in popped collar, teach us that we no longer have to live with a cold back of the neck. Sure, your pink alligator polo may look feminine to some, but not to the 17 other frat guys wearing the same thing at the bar. Where others may see thoughtless fashion conformity, you preach a higher gospel. You preach of a world where it's okay for a man to go tanning. You ask, "Why can't we wear make-up, and use shampoo with lavender essence?" So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, Mr. Abercrombie (or is it Fitch?), because we all know, when we really need a piece of gum, you might have one... in your man purse.
So, in short, if you pop your collar (except when putting on a tie), you are a woman. And do you really want to be paid 75% wages? Didn't think so.
(I'm looking at you, Eric. Be a man! Leave 'er down!)
(And it's okay to wear pink shirts so long as they are not popped.)
And now back to writing a French thing! Hasta la byebye!
1 Comments:
At 09 November, 2005 19:40,
Eric said…
Ugh.
It's pitiable to see a great mind beset by such nonsense. Cantay, you've posted the equivalent of a chain-mail letter on your blog. Congratulations. (I've seen that little paragraph on plenty of facebook profiles, incidentally.) Frankly, I don't know where to start, but I'll note that your gender-specific qualifications frighten me. Since when is an issue to look like a "man"?
It does... arouse some consternation in me to read this, and I suppose I need to consider just how to articulate it. Well, how about this: I consider your behavior to be sheep-like, which is sad. You're a goat kind of man, and goats tend not to go along with the crowd.
I know what you're thinking. "But Eric, it is the collar putter-uppers who are the sheep! They follow silly trends blindly, and it is our job to put them in their place and make them feel bad about it!"
First of all, it is not your place. Thoughtless fashion comformity. Huh. True, T-shirts with cute little slogans on them are a bit more individual-- actually, no they aren't. I don't ever, ever tell someone "Dude, you look like an idiot." Or even "Dude, you're a conformist." Nor does it really bother me. I tend to worry about myself, or at least others on a case-by-case basis (Some styles work on only some of the population). But essentially, we're all stuck with certain trends, and we don't really bother with being individual. We wear jeans. Almost all of us, every day. Are we conforming? Yes. What about people who wear suits?
Not only is it not your place to be the fashion moralist-- in this case, I find your judgment highly misplaced. I can't remember the last person I saw with a collar "popped." Second, I certainly never have seen a frat boy with a fake tan or make-up. (Still shuddering at your embracement of such homophobia.) Actually, I do remember the last person I saw with a collar up, now. It was a girl.
It's not the overarching trend you make it out to be, in other words, and thus your (and many others') outrage surprises me very much. What is it about collars up that has sparked so much rage? I'm not really sure. Perhaps it is the association with frat boys that it had during its heyday. And yes, it may be that in the end, it's a trend just like everything else that will be laughed at someday because lots of people did it. I tell you what, though. The collar up was a victim. Frat boys make everything they do look dumb, from skiing glasses hanging around their necks on straps and wearing their frayed Polo caps backwards. Thus, they oversaturated collars being up (a long-standing activity among prep school kids) and brought on a backlash.
I don't put up my collar, largely because I feel uncomfortable doing so. Because people tend to be very judgmental. (Like you, sadly!) It bothers me that I can't make my own decision, and that the popularity of a trend (or against a trend in this case) changes how I dress. But that's how us humans are. James Dean used to lift his collar in the fifties, and he was very cool. So did John Lennon, and Steve McQueen. Yes, I watch old movies sometimes. The very cool, the trendsetters get away with whatever they want, while us nobodies receive stiff wags of finger when we try something new. In other words, regardless of whether a trend is annoying or not, I think people who go out of their way to be angry about it-- and tell them so-- are judgmental and in the end, must be lacking on some level a self-confidence that would allow them to ignore it.
It's kind of sad.
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