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I heard about this on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last week. Their take (and my paraphrase): "There's no better way to proclaim your commitment to chastity than to write it across your firm, teenage booty."
These have irony written all over them. I'd bet money there's someone in Williamsburg wearing them right now.
When did the butt-writing thing start anyway? I think my first alphabutt sighting was in the early eightities. Heh - that's eighties. I think it was for a swim team. It's a truly awful trend I wish would go away (although I'm considering making male versions of these).
Oh, dear. It's so brilliant and so stupid at the same time.
I have a braille t-shirt that says "If you can read this, you are too close". Nobody had the guts to make the one my sister dreamed up: "Wish you were here".
Telling that it's popular with the parents of preteen girls.
Are there matching crotch-patches for boys' pants?
And I can't wait for the inevitable mods - adding "in line" to the uh, bottom line.
Oh. WANT. I think teenage bootys are big enough now that I could find it in my size. Then find some sort of tee to go with it - I mean, against it, (A medicinal herb graphic shirt comes to mind) and walk around dripping irony from my, uh, booty.
OK, here's my theory.
it's an easy way to let folks know that while the front door is out of the question until a walk down the aisle, the back side is fair game since you can still say you're a virgin after.
Kmart issued a statement this week saying the pants were not created to promote the True Love Waits organization. "It is not our intent to associate with any one particular group or cause," it said.
Yea, riiiiiight. I find it hard to believe that nobody in design, production, marketing, merchandising, or any of the 15,000 other departments that get products made and sold came out and said, hey guys, you know, there's a group out there called True Love Waits, and people will probably think these pants have to do with them.
Man, this story combines so many things that I don't like to think about. You've got the simultaneous sexualization and infantilization of teenagers, and the cheap, disposable crap marketed to them by cynical and condescending adults. You've got an empowerment movement that tries to substitute sloganeering for real discourse, then lies to its constituents about its funding and motivations, then lies to the government and media about its efficacy. You've got the viral marketers who seem determined to prove again that there's no such thing as bad publicity, and the toothless and impotent infotainment reporters who seem equally determined to prove 'em right. And, now, you've got the big corporation that stands in front of you and lies to your face, knowing there's nothing you can do about it.
I mean, what's the most charitable reading that could possibly be brought to this story? Let me try: K-Mart's designers, and everyone surrounding them, are so, uh, busy and hardworking, that they managed to, uh, make an homage to somebody else's slogan without even realizing it. Media outlets covered the story because they thought it was, uh, newsworthy and important, but didn't see this as an opportunity to educate readers about either viral marketing or the abstinence-only movement, because, uh, it just didn't occur to them, and they were on deadline. And K-Mart, once the situation was brought to their attention, took the opportunity to reassure everyone that the only cause they support is profit.
Sorry for the rant--this story kinda brings out the worst, y'know?
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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