The New York Times obviously continues to read Geek Philosophy. On July 8th, I wrote:
Some generations express themselves through poetry; others, through song. Xers use T-shirts.
And in Thurday’s Times:
Lately limited edition T-shirts, most likely made in someone's cellar in Brooklyn, have suddenly become the hipster's preferred mode of expression. Whether produced by college pals with studio art degrees or sold by highly organized Web companies like threadless.com - visitors to the site offer ideas and vote on designs, which are then put into microproduction - the limited edition T-shirt has become impossible to avoid.
Often crude and uncommercial-looking, its imagery represents a kind of generational response to the bland uniformity of the mass-marketed "vintage" lines found in every mall. This development has not been lost on those same manufacturers, however. Some are already producing T-shirts that mimic the do it yourself look of indie T-shirts.
...
The trend partly reflects the great democratic welter of the e-commerce ether, and it partly serves as a marker of hipness, defined by the savvy with which a consumer can navigate the Web labyrinth in search of the coolest obscurities.
[from The New York Times]
So, the more of a Web-surfing dork you can be correlates to how hip you are. You can believe it, because The New York Times has officially declared it to be true, which must mean the trend is already peaking, or is at least already blazingly obvious to everyone except Times’ editors (see: the year it took for the Times to notice the hot new SF series that has overtones of the current national security situation).
Anyway, this is my favorite T-shirt of the moment:
Reacting to the NYPD’s announcement Thursday afternoon that police would randomly -- but routinely -- search the bags of commuters, one concerned New Yorker quickly created a way for civil libertarians to make their views black-and-white.
In a few outraged moments, local immigrant rights activist Tony Lu designed t-shirts bearing the text "i do not consent to being searched."
[from The Village Voice]
Angry NYCers -- and geek hipsters looking to make a statement -- can buy the shirts here.
