A rant from a soon to be laid off T-Shirt Hell employee
Awesome shit right I tell ya! Very rare do I ever read a rant that makes me say "OH SNAP!" like I did when I was 16, but this is one of them
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(In response to a select group of assholes and their self righteous reaction to us going out of business)
I would like to say something to all the idiots who think we've poisoned society. And I'm not talking about the religious nuts or the militant [whining minority here]. I'm talking about this new wave of douches comprised primarily of twenty- and thirty- something white people who feel like they have to defend the little guy, despite the fact that in 2009 the little guy no longer exists, and if he does he isn't even aware there's a fight going on.
The obvious response to these people would be to say they have no sense of humor, basically because it's the truth. But too many people think sense of humor means what you do and don't laugh at. If you look up the definition that may be what it is. But to me sense of humor means you don't take things so seriously. It doesn't mean you laugh at what's funny and don't laugh at what isn't. It means you don't get pissed about what is clearly a joke.
All these damn hip people pretend to love satire as long as said satire is in agreement with views they already hold. "Yay! They're subtly pointing out problems with government and corporations. That is brilliant satire." But if someone delivers a bit of satire that attacks instead of defends their beliefs, well that's just pandering and juvenile.
If I write something pointing out the positives of corporations, (and they do have a LOT of positives) it would be dismissed immediately as the work of an immature douchebag. It wouldn't matter how logical and well-presented it was. Because it doesn't agree with their already held belief of "corporations bad" it would just be wrong.
It's all well and good to laugh at Stephen Colbert because he winks at the camera. "You see, it's okay that he made a racist joke because he gave me a sly smirk and let me know he was kidding." I like him and appreciate his work, but I say fuck that.
I will look you in the eye and use "hahahahahaha" as a punchline because anyone with a goddamn brain should know I'm kidding. I'm not going to be a pussy and end every sentence with "j/k" or allude to the fact that I'm the asshole in a scenario just because modern comedy has been neutered. I have no desire to cater to the techno-savvy, utterly useless generation currently drowning in irony.
"Irony" has come to define comedy for this group of cubicle-dwelling slackers who think the only valid form of comedy must be slathered in snarkiness and must point out that rich white people are assholes. Powerful insight, hipster. You're so goddamn busy being original you failed to notice you're about the least original thing left on the planet.
I'm also not going to censor myself just because a lot of people in this world are ignorant assholes who miss the point. There's no shortage of racists and/or wife-beaters in the world. You really think some retarded gag I thought of in a pot-fueled stupor is "empowering" these dicks? Rick from Meineke was going to hit Sheila tonight because he's a miserable sack of shit, not because we make a reference to a fat bitch on some strands of cotton. He's not going to look at T-Shirt Hell and go "The shirt makes a good point. Here comes the thunder, Sheila!"
A joke, on a shirt or otherwise, has never hurt anyone. You can call that an old argument and you'd be right, but the only reason that argument has gotten old is because you emotionally coddled cunts keep presenting it. The rest of us are content to just laugh at shit and keep to ourselves.
In fact, if a joke has ever gotten anyone hurt, it would be the person delivering the joke. As in, the guy wearing one of these "abhorrent" shirts might possibly get his ass kicked as a result. If that's the case, the guy you call the narrow-minded piece of trash is the one having harm inflicted upon him, and probably at the hands of the guy you felt needed defending in the first place.
I suppose it doesn't really matter what I say, because the people I'm talking about here will not give my side of the argument any regard. Kind of ironic, considering many of them present themselves as pillars of open-mindedness. They can use illogical thinking to make any argument they want. In this instance they chose to complain about T-shirts, but they could just as easily have written to General Mills and complained that the goddamn Cocoa Puffs bird reinforces stereotypes.
I'm talking about the kind of people who will no doubt find contradictions in this very article, because they don't listen to people they disagree with so they can learn from or hear the other side. They only listen to people they disagree with waiting for an opportunity to prove them wrong. The same kind of people who watch FOX News ironically.
I hate Bill O'Reilly as much as anyone who doesn't eat paste, but if and when I watch his show (when my remote and legs are broken) I will attempt to get his point of view. I'm not going to watch it just so I can roll my eyes and feel smarter than a windbag with millions of dollars. "O'Reilly is such a tool. I'm gonna go listen to the Decemberists now."
These dicks call us racist, sexist and homophobic at the drop of a hat, all in an effort to convince themselves and others they are enlightened, but the truth is that they are, at best, oversensitive, or, at worst, insincere tools who just want to make others feel bad for enjoying something.
To me at least, racism, sexism and all the other -isms are defined by actions, not by thoughts or jokes. If I put some joke on a shirt about hunting Jews with a crossbow, it's not the new Holocaust. It's a fucking joke. Maybe it's funny and maybe it's not, but beyond that it's nothing.
You think there are one million potential Nazis out there just waiting for one retarded pun to pull the whole thing together? "We have so much hate for Jews, but we're so disorganized. If we only had one funny shirt to get us really organiz- Well well well... What's this? A rabbi getting shoved in a meat grinder on a T-shirt? Let's go get 'em, boys!"
Forgive the analogy, but the twats who label you as uneducated or misogynistic because you had the audacity to chuckle at a retarded joke are basically the adult version of the emo kid who tries to make well-adjusted kids feel inferior because they play football instead of brooding. Fortunately emos and fags who complain about shirts have the internet to convene and strengthen each other's douchiness.
Aside from the people who deride us as a cancer on society, there are also the people who simply refer to us as immature and lowest common denominator. To those people I would just like to say: No fucking shit. You call what we do juvenile? The company that makes shirts about midgets and shaving your balls is childish? As long as you're tossing out these keen observations, why don't you point out that Fat Albert is fat and black and Albert? Hey, there's two guys 69ing each other with vibrators shoved in their asses. Could you tell me if they're gay? I just can't fucking tell.
Anyone who complains about any business is just deluding themselves that they're affecting or influencing a company's product or business practices. You're pathetic. You're not an agent of change. You're just another prick wasting your life, only you don't even have the good sense to do it with drugs, alcohol and anonymous sex. You choose to do it with your cuntish whining and morally superior brow beating.
You people are nothing more than your very own grandparents complaining about Elvis Presley's shaking hips. He was supposed to end society, but society went on. Then came your parents, and David Bowie and Martin Scorsese were supposed to ruin society. Society went on. Well now it's your turn, and what are you people complaining about? Cartoons and T-shirts.
You convince yourselves the type of entertainment we provide can undo social progress because you want to believe entertainment can provide social progress. The truth is it can't do either. Minorities gained rights because a bunch of politicians passed laws, not because Bob Dylan wrote some pretty songs.
But this is all just a lot of bluster once you realize I'm talking about fucking entertainment. You can take all the references to social commentary, satire and irony and shove them up your ass. This is all just something to be either enjoyed or glanced at and forgotten. We're not making the world a worse place and Jon Stewart isn't making the world a better place. We're all just a bunch of people saying stuff and either you like it or you don't.
Feel free to say we suck, but you don't need to quote civil rights leaders and hypothesize for ten paragraphs to justify your opinion of some fucking shirts. Just say "Fucking lame" and move on. When you go on a 500-word diatribe about the social relevance of our shirts you are doing two things.
1) Placing way too much importance on a bunch of shirts that, despite the handful of shirts people single out as "over the line," are essentially a lot of jokes about fucking and drinking.
And 2) You are discussing the importance of that shirt, thus validating the existence of that shirt as a source of social debate, indirectly giving merit to us keeping that shirt on the site.
continued....
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