Don't be a billboard

Don’t Be a Billboard.

You are a person, don’t be a billboard.

In the brave new world of mass-market consumerism, you can purchase all manner of clothing. You have a wide variety of brands from which to chose. Many of those brands are more than happy to sell you clothes with their name on them.

Not your name.

Their name.

This is a very important distinction.

Don't be a billboardThe clothes you wear have the practical purposes of keeping you covered and warm. Clothes can also be an expression of who you are. So what are you saying when you wear clothes with a corporate logo on them?  These corporate chains may indeed have really cool clothes that look great on you. But a t-shirt that states the name of the company that sold it doesn’t make you look cool. It makes you look like a sucker.

What clothing brands would absolutely love for you to do is pay them to allow you to advertise for them. Who can blame them? If someone is willing to give you something for free, you take it. If people are willing to give a corporation free publicity by becoming walking billboards for their products, man, that has to be the best thing capitalism has ever dreamed up! Not only are the billboards free, the billboards go out and about and mingle with the target audience!

You become a billboard. That is what you are when you buy clothing or accessories with brand names blazoned across them: you turn yourself into a billboard for someone else. Not only are you not being paid to make money for someone else, you are paying them to make money for them.

I am not telling you to not buy clothes from any particular stores; though you should generally buy from local merchants over corporate ones. I am saying that you can be so much more than just a vehicle for someone else.

The clothes you wear should be an expression of you, not an expression of a corporation. Don’t be a billboard.

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