Rachael Palinkas

I was browsing the Internet the other day and came across a T-shirt that read “Life is better tan.”            

I was seriously appalled that they had this available to buy, but more so at the fact that the company actually went through the process of having it printed and mass produced.

Whenever you wear anything, it communicates something about the message you want to send to the world, be it a message plain and clear such as “Obama in 2008,” or a basketball jersey or mini-skirt.

Though the message sent may not be taken as it was intended, the message is there, and we should be a little more conscious of the decisions we make when wearing T-shirts that represent certain messages or ideals.

The fact that T-shirts with vain messages such as “Blondes do it better” are even in existence irks me. Especially because of the contradiction it makes between the treatment that people want and the treatment they receive as a result of wearing these T-shirts.

Most people would say they like to be treated with respect, but when you put something such as these T-shirts on your body you are basically asking for the degradation and stereotypes that become associated with those messages.

For example, the whole feud between blondes and brunettes continues to thrive because of the media images behind the two groups and because the representation of stereotypical messages are worn on T-shirts or acted out.

If people want to wear T-shirts with direct messages, they should truly consider what wearing said message will reflect of them. Instead of wearing T-shirts that have any old message, we should wear T-shirts that have messages we are really passionate about, such as “Become educated, then vote,”  “Always wear sunscreen” or “Let’s all do our part to help with homelessness in America.” Then we would be projecting images of ourselves that represent beliefs we want to be associated with having.