elfs | Watching your past fade, one batch of laundry at a time (Reply)

Queer \kwi(ə)r\: different in some way that is unique.

Every morning during the winter, I confront a difficult question: what t-shirt should I wear? I confront this question because almost all of my t-shirts are favorites, carefully and thoughtfully collected over the years, and I know that every time I wear them, they wear down more, they fade, and ultimately they die.

I made a photographic collection of some of them on Flickr, ones that are already well on their way towards their inevitable disintegration, and looking over them I feel oddly nostalgic. They fall into one of three categories: sex and S&M, furry, or geek. Most of the geek shirts are from various places I've worked: Spry, CompuServe, F5, and Isilon.

The sex ones are a little understated. Okay, the Queer Nation shirt isn't, but unless you're in the know about "C-Space" or "Beyond the Edge," you have no idea what those shirts are for. Still, they were as useful for signalling back when signalling was necessary^[1].

The Magician

The furry ones are the most diverse, although oddly given the whole anti-fur attitude on the Internet I worry most about wearing them. Since I seem to have a mostly normal life, and so do most of the furries I know, I've never understood why the stereotype outlasted its original casting. I suppose I fit many of the stereotypes, as I'm attracted to both men and women (although not in equal volume, I've long known).

We like to hold onto the things of the past. I'm a very utilitarian person in some ways, and the things that fill my life are things I can use. I do collect things to look at and listen to, but often the soundworthiness of a piece I measure by how much it charges me while I work, and the utility of a piece of art I measure by how many ideas it sparks in my head. I collect these T-shirts because they say something about me, and I fear for their demise because I fear that when they go I'll no longer have a grip on the subcultures they represent.

It's also true that the subcultures they represent no longer exist: I can go to a Furry convention and nobody will know who the Hell I am. A new generation has come into being that seems embarassed by what its progenitors were up to. The S&M subculture is so completely smeared into the mainstream that people no longer flinch that much when they learn there's a club for that in their city. Oh, that's just what people do these days. I go to Furry conventions and people aren't even selling t-shirts, nor for that matter are the nightclubs and S&M dungeons that used to put out wink-and-nod articles of clothing that let us wink and nod at one another.

Maybe I'm just complaining about getting old. Or being a parent and incapable of getting out more often and buying more t-shirts. Or being jaded and not wanting these symbols of belonging anymore. Whatever it is, it's annoying, and for me, profoundly sad.

^[1]Pascal Bruckner opines in his article The Love of Lust that the current zeitgeist is one in which we're afraid to admit that we're not getting laid. I suppose there's something to that.