… Nor will the revolution come through t-shirts that proclaim that “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Those shirts irk the hell out of me. Anybody trying to provoke political/cultural dissert through t-shirts (particularly those purchased from Hot Topic, Urban Outfitters, or Newbury Comics) would do well to take a class or read a couple books about consumer culture. Shepard Fairey’s Obey stuff doesn’t count. And I don’t mean to insult anybody who shops at those stores or enjoys that kind of art, especially as I do now or have at times fit into both categories; my word of caution only relates to the illusion that cultural change can come about through commodities. I guess the proper phrase here is, “You can’t destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools,” but I always hated that saying because it’s a dumb analogy – of course you can destroy a house with hammers, cranes, shovels, etc. I nearly did it myself one summer with Kai and his brother Glenn. I hope Dr. Perry’s piano hasn’t fallen into the basement yet.

Where was I? Oh, right, politics and t-shirts. Well, all of that said, I do enjoy the shirts at Sharp Toast, which I came upon by an article written by the designer at Speak Up (a design blog). At the end of the article, Lasser notes that democrats and republicans bought and enjoyed the very same shirts, making these shirts “a uniting point in a very divisive political climate.”

I think it’s clever that these shirts are designed in such a way that they’re appealing to folks on both ends of the political spectrum, but I think it’s kind of unlikely that this often represents a “uniting point.” After all, people’s interpretations can be totally diametrically opposed. When I bought my brother Stephen a t-shirt reading, “Guns don’t kill people, video games kill people,” we both read it as ironic, as the designers and sellers intended (if the copy on the page linked above is any indication). Someone in my department who studies the harmful effects of media on children also enjoyed the shirt — because she thinks it’s true. This is less a testament to design’s usefulness to speak to multiple audiences and more a testament to people’s ability to interpret things however they like.

Still, I think we can all agree that Taft is a complicated man, and no one understands him but his woman.