Thoughts, notes, observations on the everyday nonsense of American Pop Culture from one of the most not-hip people on the face of the planet...

Friday, May 13, 2005

The lessons of Hot Topic, trends and teens

Hot Topic used to be one of my favorite stores back in the day. I liked having a place to buy clothes I could never get away with wearing today: Spiked belts, bondage pants, chains, arm warmers…the works.

But in taking a stroll through one today, I noted how horrifically trendy it has become. I used to be intimidated by how the clerks were so much more awesomely goth than I was…but now, I see that they’re wearing what they sell and I shake my head at how much they’re willing to spend to look like everyone else who thinks they’re indie in high school.

It used to be a store for fat, flat chested, nerdy and goth kids to find weird clothes to freak out the popular kids. Now, it’s a store for those popular kids to spend their daddy’s money on the latest flash-in-the-pan trend. (I saw “American Dad” gear, for God’s sake. That show will be lucky to be on a network in weeks, let alone have enough shelf life for retail)

Today, a pseudo-goth girl was standing next to me looking through the Napoleon Dynamite-inspired t-shirts, armbands and backpacks. She held up an armband that had a very, very minute reference to the film and showed it to me. “Omigod. Isn’t this the coolest?”

Oh, the things I could have said ran through my head, to be sure. All I managed to stammer out was, “Um…I didn’t really like that movie.”

In hindsight, I should have given her a piece of advice from someone a little older and wiser. I should have taken her over to the clearance rack, where she could see the trends that were omigod-so-cool about six months ago that now are nearly forgotten. They had Osbournes t-shirts, Viva La Bam armbands and tons of Spongebob gear.

I should have told her that in six months, there will be some other stupid phenomenon she’ll shell out money for, and then she’ll look at her “Vote for Pedro” shirt and wonder why she ever bought it. I’ll tell her I once did the same thing, only then it was flannel shirts like Kurt Cobain's, MC Hammer pants and hypercolor t-shirts. Then she’d look at me like I’m retarded.

I guess that’s something she’ll have to figure that out for herself. I did.

Sort of.

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