T-shirts with print: Life is a journey!

Capitalism wears you down, sooner or later. He always finds a way. Even while we sleep, he constantly asks himself how he can deceive us and smear us, how he can exploit us for his own purposes, how he can make things in the world of goods worse and uglier behind our backs: he has invented so-called planned obsolescence. He secretly, quietly and quietly reduces the filling quantities of cereal boxes and chip bags. Or he sells us hydrogenated vegetable fat mixed with food coloring, water, artificial flavorings and flavor enhancers as “cheese”. (What exactly is the pale yellow, rubbery, faintly dressing room-smelling substance on some baked goods that is officially called “cheese” (“cheese-topped”)?

The most important question in this context, which remains unanswered to this day, is: Why are department stores and clothing stores now almost exclusively offering sweatshirts, sweaters and T-shirts that either have the manufacturer’s name emblazoned on them in large size or have a hard-to-bear off-the-shelf dull saying? (I’M GREAT, LOVE AND PLAY, LIFE IS A JOURNEY, SUNSHINE & COFFEE, DREAM BIG)

Just twenty or thirty years ago it was possible to occasionally purchase items of clothing that one could wear without being perceived as a fool or an advertising idiot. But that era ended irrevocably the moment some windy clothing designer first came up with the idea of ​​having the words AUTHENTIC STREETWEAR printed on a sweater.

Since then, I’m not sure whether, in a better future, the production and sale of clothing printed with lettering should be completely abandoned.

Because: In the first case (brand or manufacturer name on the sweater) you make a complete fool of yourself because you work unpaid for a corporation by voluntarily walking around as a kind of breathing mobile advertising column. (Much worse still: when you had previously purchased the item of clothing in question, of course also voluntarily, you even gave the company money so that you could act as an advertising mascot for them free of charge.)

In the second case (motivational or fortune cookie saying or comparable idiot slogan on the sweater), the wearer uses his sweatshirt to show the current state of stupidity in which he is currently. One can proceed from the rule of thumb: the more intensively the sweater wearer tries to give those around him the impression that he is a thwarted philosopher or worldly wise man (CARPE DIEM, TIME NEVER STOPS, C’EST LA VIE, FREEDOM!, LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH LOVE) or an individualist who stands out from the crowd of normal idiots (BE YOURSELF, EXPRESS YOURSELF, BE THE ENERGY YOU WANT TO ATTRACT), the more advanced his total intellectual desolation is likely to be.

Right down to those poor sausages who, apparently completely free of pain, not only see the permanent, total affirmation of the existing situation as having no alternative, but also want to impose this affirmation on their counterparts as a kind of confession of faith via a T-shirt print (HAPPY!, KEEP SMILING, FUN VIBES, HAPPINESS, SPREAD THE JOY, ENJOY LIFE). This means that everyone who meets the T-shirt wearer should no longer refuse this prescribed happiness, this modern fun and joy fascism, which is supposed to reach even the last, most hidden corner of this society. Even the most stubborn and incorrigible naysayer and complainer should be weaned from reading Adorno within a few seconds – by forcing a steely smile on his lips with the slogan on your new hoodie. THINK POSITIVE. RADIATE POSITIVITY. HAVE A GOOD DAY.

What drives these people? Who would intentionally buy a sweatshirt with such an idiot print at a price of 50, 100 or 150 euros? I mean: I wouldn’t even think of getting MORNING HOUR HAS GOLD IN THE MOUTH tattooed on my forehead.

One thing is certain: at the latest when the textile processing companies start printing HAVE A GOOD DAY or ENJOY LIFE on trousers, skirts, jackets and scarves, which are sewn together piece by piece by the sweatshop slaves in Bangladesh in 16-hour shifts, you should ask yourself whether you can wear your worn-out old jeans for another six months.