One time, while I was either in high school or early in my college years (I think it was during high school), my father told me that it is a good thing that young people are so attractive, because they seem to do everything possible to be as ugly or unattractive as possible.
Perhaps he was talking specifically about something, some kind of fashion trend or style, that I was trying out. Or, perhaps he had seen something that someone else, some other young person, was wearing or trying.
Either way, the point was clear. Indeed, fashion trends tend to come and go, and what seems strange just months, or maybe even weeks before, suddenly becomes cool for a little while. Then, once the look is no longer trendy, it falls away quickly. The clothes, or the accessories, are found on the clearance racks, and before long, they become a memory. Anyone who stays with it too long is seen as uncool and out of step with fashion. Eventually, enough time might pass when that style, or those styles from our past, are literally laughed at. Of course, the fashion industry is raking in the big bucks the whole time.
There was something like that recently, although it was not so much fashion, and it was a trend taken up by mostly elementary school and middle school aged kids. It was the fidget spinners, which kind of looked cool, and were quite distracting. They were intensely popular for about six months or so, leading up to last summer. Then, just like that, they went out of style somewhere during the summer. None of the kids wanted them, and where they once sold for somewhere between $7 to $10 each, they were now regularly featured in the clearance racks for a fraction of the price. Where before, I could hardly go a class period without seeing some kids taking their fidget spinners out, often showing them off, by September of this academic year of 2017-18, I literally do not think I have seen a single kid with a fidget spinner. My own son was in a hurry to get rid of all of the one that he acquired - some of which he spent a fair amount of his own money on - and to completely discard them.
To me, these trendy things are just a waste of money. Fine, perhaps to some degree, if it is not too expensive, and you find it fun, I can understand, just so long as you are not, or do not become, one of those people who feels the need to discard whatever it is the second you perceive that it is no longer viewed as really cool.
However, this tendency to try and keep up with the latest fashion trends, and to spend considerable amounts of money to try and look cool and hip and fashionable, with trends that change as often as the seasons do, if not more so, just seems not only pointless, but downright decadent. That seems to me to be the very definition of being a slave to fashion.
Perhaps that is a luxury you can afford if you are rich. But for the rest of us, why voluntarily enter into some kind of vicious cycle of working hard to be able to afford trendy clothes that will no longer be trendy six months from now?
Some time ago - I cannot remember exactly when - there was a blog entry that I added here about an apparently new trend of jeans that appeared muddy and extremely dirty. It looked like this by design, and cost something in the hundreds of dollars, which was absolutely absurd to me. Think about it: some people who buy such a pair of jeans are spending a small fortune to have the "authentic" appearance of a working man, and paying top dollar for the privilege. They did not earn the dirty, muddy look by actually getting down and dirty with work, but just went into one of those overpriced stores (I believe it was Nordstrum's, if memory serves correctly) and paid what seems to me a tremendous amount of money for it. Just a regular pair of jeans, but they looked very muddy and dirty, on purpose.
What a waste of money!
Now, just by chance, I happened on another ridiculous pair of jeans (this time for women) that are just severely overpriced. Some people commented that they hoped that this was an April Fool's joke, although it is now well over a month since April Fool's.
Take a look at these jeans. It seemed shocking to me, and to many others, when jeans which were intentionally ripped became fashionable and were also sold for top dollar. But these jeans are not even ripped, as much as they are virtually non-existent! These do not even qualify as jeans. They are very short jeans shorts, with straps attaching to the bottom, to qualify as actual pants. It seems that underwear is showing, as the model wearing them has her bikini bottom showing.
Is this seriously a thing? And in an age when there is greater economic disparity in this country, and in this world, arguably, than ever before, have we collectively grown so blasé about things like this, that we are willing to spend a hell of a lot of money for what seems to me to be transparently a scam trend? Something like this will likely be very temporary. Are these going to be around in six months, or one year? How completely removed from reality do you have to be if you do not make a lot of money, yet go to some fashionable store in the mall, or order it online, and make the purchase for these jeans for the price that you can buy probably five or six pairs of actual, full jeans at local discount stores?
Again, admittedly, I am not a man much into fashion. My philosophy traditionally when purchasing clothes has been to make a bee line directly for the clearance racks, and then to find something cheap and inoffensive to the eye, and to go ahead and make the purchase if it fits. Maybe that sounds silly to some, but really, again, how silly do our fashion trends look years after? I remember some high school classmates suggesting that they laugh every time that they look through our old yearbooks, and see the big hair that was then very much in fashion for girls. How are these jeans, and these kinds of trends more generally, any different?
There are people who I know who absolutely cannot, and will not, purchase anything but name brands. Sure, you can save a ton of money by buying the cheaper stuff, such as foods or other household items at the supermarket, and these work just as well, or taste just as good (or almost). Yet, it is not a name brand, so they refuse.
This has become a problem for our society. It used to be that capitalism worked better because there was a Main Street for every sizable town. People would go to the same stores, often to purchase similar items. Along the way, they would bump into some people who they knew, and low and behold, they would actually interact with one another! Maybe they might grab a bite to eat at some local institution, and everything would be down to a small scale.
Nowadays, people flock to the malls, if they go out at all to shop. Some do not even bother doing that much, and do most, if not all, of their shopping online. But for those who do go out, they generally go to name brand stores, and purchase name brand goods, often at top price. There is little to no social interaction with anyone else, and if meals are consumed, these also are name brands. After all, it is not by accident that local stores and eateries have had the life choked out of them by mega corporations with readily identifiable logos. Why shop on Main Street, when we can go to the mall and buy stuff at Macy's or Norstrom's? Why eat at the local diner or other small restaurant, when we can eat at McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's or Taco Bell? Sure, we are treated as just another customer there, because they are so big, that they clearly do not value individual customers. McDonald's just announced that they will be starting the trend of touch screens for customers, so that there is even less social interaction than exists now, so that they do not have to pay workers anything close to a salary resembling a livable wage. A lot of supermarkets already have self-service lines, which to me, always is a glaringly obvious signal that new cashiers will not be hired, that there will be fewer jobs. Yet, people keep flocking to those lines, for the sake of convenience, because they do not want to wait those few extra, precious minutes. When everything is about business like efficiency, actually being human, and caring about how all of this is not making the world a better place just is not a profitable thought, so it is not encouraged. Most people do not seem to waste a moment thinking about any of this, of course.
What I cannot stand, though, is how this contributes to the ruining of our economy. I mean seriously, think about it: many people who cannot afford this will just put it on plastic. You know, spend money that they do not have to get what they want right now, probably knowing deep down that these jeans will be useless to them a year from now at the very most, when some other crappy fashion has replaced this as the cool new trend. And there is a good chance that at that point, perhaps after finally having paid off these jeans, they will go ahead and borrow money on the convenient plastic in their wallet in order to obtain the latest fashion trend of the moment.
It is a ridiculous trend.
Then, everyone wonders why this country is swimming in debt. And we also wonder why people who are not encouraged to think at all make bad decisions, like voting a clown into the White House, and other things that make the rest of the world either laugh at us or hate us, or perhaps both.
But, just keep shopping, and get your mind off all your worries. Perhaps next time, you'll have gotten a pay raise or something, and be better able to afford these silly pairs of jeans, or whatever other crap is available, and being pushed as the hot new thing, next time.
Frankly, I am guessing that in a few years, quite a few people who bought these jeans will, likewise, be laughing at themselves, or at close friends who bought into this "trend."
Either that, or they will be crying, wondering how they ever could have brought themselves to make such a big purchase for such a poor quality product.
These $168 jeans won’t cover your legs – but they do have pockets , May 4, 2018, BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE
To me, these trendy things are just a waste of money. Fine, perhaps to some degree, if it is not too expensive, and you find it fun, I can understand, just so long as you are not, or do not become, one of those people who feels the need to discard whatever it is the second you perceive that it is no longer viewed as really cool.
However, this tendency to try and keep up with the latest fashion trends, and to spend considerable amounts of money to try and look cool and hip and fashionable, with trends that change as often as the seasons do, if not more so, just seems not only pointless, but downright decadent. That seems to me to be the very definition of being a slave to fashion.
Perhaps that is a luxury you can afford if you are rich. But for the rest of us, why voluntarily enter into some kind of vicious cycle of working hard to be able to afford trendy clothes that will no longer be trendy six months from now?
Some time ago - I cannot remember exactly when - there was a blog entry that I added here about an apparently new trend of jeans that appeared muddy and extremely dirty. It looked like this by design, and cost something in the hundreds of dollars, which was absolutely absurd to me. Think about it: some people who buy such a pair of jeans are spending a small fortune to have the "authentic" appearance of a working man, and paying top dollar for the privilege. They did not earn the dirty, muddy look by actually getting down and dirty with work, but just went into one of those overpriced stores (I believe it was Nordstrum's, if memory serves correctly) and paid what seems to me a tremendous amount of money for it. Just a regular pair of jeans, but they looked very muddy and dirty, on purpose.
What a waste of money!
Now, just by chance, I happened on another ridiculous pair of jeans (this time for women) that are just severely overpriced. Some people commented that they hoped that this was an April Fool's joke, although it is now well over a month since April Fool's.
Take a look at these jeans. It seemed shocking to me, and to many others, when jeans which were intentionally ripped became fashionable and were also sold for top dollar. But these jeans are not even ripped, as much as they are virtually non-existent! These do not even qualify as jeans. They are very short jeans shorts, with straps attaching to the bottom, to qualify as actual pants. It seems that underwear is showing, as the model wearing them has her bikini bottom showing.
Is this seriously a thing? And in an age when there is greater economic disparity in this country, and in this world, arguably, than ever before, have we collectively grown so blasé about things like this, that we are willing to spend a hell of a lot of money for what seems to me to be transparently a scam trend? Something like this will likely be very temporary. Are these going to be around in six months, or one year? How completely removed from reality do you have to be if you do not make a lot of money, yet go to some fashionable store in the mall, or order it online, and make the purchase for these jeans for the price that you can buy probably five or six pairs of actual, full jeans at local discount stores?
Again, admittedly, I am not a man much into fashion. My philosophy traditionally when purchasing clothes has been to make a bee line directly for the clearance racks, and then to find something cheap and inoffensive to the eye, and to go ahead and make the purchase if it fits. Maybe that sounds silly to some, but really, again, how silly do our fashion trends look years after? I remember some high school classmates suggesting that they laugh every time that they look through our old yearbooks, and see the big hair that was then very much in fashion for girls. How are these jeans, and these kinds of trends more generally, any different?
There are people who I know who absolutely cannot, and will not, purchase anything but name brands. Sure, you can save a ton of money by buying the cheaper stuff, such as foods or other household items at the supermarket, and these work just as well, or taste just as good (or almost). Yet, it is not a name brand, so they refuse.
This has become a problem for our society. It used to be that capitalism worked better because there was a Main Street for every sizable town. People would go to the same stores, often to purchase similar items. Along the way, they would bump into some people who they knew, and low and behold, they would actually interact with one another! Maybe they might grab a bite to eat at some local institution, and everything would be down to a small scale.
Nowadays, people flock to the malls, if they go out at all to shop. Some do not even bother doing that much, and do most, if not all, of their shopping online. But for those who do go out, they generally go to name brand stores, and purchase name brand goods, often at top price. There is little to no social interaction with anyone else, and if meals are consumed, these also are name brands. After all, it is not by accident that local stores and eateries have had the life choked out of them by mega corporations with readily identifiable logos. Why shop on Main Street, when we can go to the mall and buy stuff at Macy's or Norstrom's? Why eat at the local diner or other small restaurant, when we can eat at McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's or Taco Bell? Sure, we are treated as just another customer there, because they are so big, that they clearly do not value individual customers. McDonald's just announced that they will be starting the trend of touch screens for customers, so that there is even less social interaction than exists now, so that they do not have to pay workers anything close to a salary resembling a livable wage. A lot of supermarkets already have self-service lines, which to me, always is a glaringly obvious signal that new cashiers will not be hired, that there will be fewer jobs. Yet, people keep flocking to those lines, for the sake of convenience, because they do not want to wait those few extra, precious minutes. When everything is about business like efficiency, actually being human, and caring about how all of this is not making the world a better place just is not a profitable thought, so it is not encouraged. Most people do not seem to waste a moment thinking about any of this, of course.
What I cannot stand, though, is how this contributes to the ruining of our economy. I mean seriously, think about it: many people who cannot afford this will just put it on plastic. You know, spend money that they do not have to get what they want right now, probably knowing deep down that these jeans will be useless to them a year from now at the very most, when some other crappy fashion has replaced this as the cool new trend. And there is a good chance that at that point, perhaps after finally having paid off these jeans, they will go ahead and borrow money on the convenient plastic in their wallet in order to obtain the latest fashion trend of the moment.
It is a ridiculous trend.
Then, everyone wonders why this country is swimming in debt. And we also wonder why people who are not encouraged to think at all make bad decisions, like voting a clown into the White House, and other things that make the rest of the world either laugh at us or hate us, or perhaps both.
But, just keep shopping, and get your mind off all your worries. Perhaps next time, you'll have gotten a pay raise or something, and be better able to afford these silly pairs of jeans, or whatever other crap is available, and being pushed as the hot new thing, next time.
Frankly, I am guessing that in a few years, quite a few people who bought these jeans will, likewise, be laughing at themselves, or at close friends who bought into this "trend."
Either that, or they will be crying, wondering how they ever could have brought themselves to make such a big purchase for such a poor quality product.
These $168 jeans won’t cover your legs – but they do have pockets , May 4, 2018, BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE
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