are you one of the beautiful people?

The beauty of fandom.

I am a reader of blogs. Not many, just the ones published by my friends (Look! There on the side! It's a bird, it's a plane... It's a blogroll!) and a couple of select others. Kevin Smith and Dooce most regularly. Because they are well written, tend towards hilarity, and don't make me feel a. stupid or b.like i've just wasted five minutes of my lifetime. I was struck today when I saw that Heather, over at Dooce, has begun to offer tee shirts. Now, as a compulsive reader of Questionable Content, Dinosaur Comics and Red Meat, I am no stranger to the lure of tee shirts affiliated with the internet. I certainly don't begrudge dooce the selling of tee shirts. Really this is just a reflection on my amazement at the internet. People will buy the shirts, even though they don't have any nifty pictures or phrases, becase dooce has created a community of readership. The internet is a very strange place.

Would you buy a shirt that says Franken, or Jonathan Safran Foer? Yeah. I'd probably buy one that says Jonathan Safran Foer. But I'd probably be more apt to buy a shirt that says "Dear Stephen Hawking, Can I be your protege?" which is a direct reference to the book, but is a little less obvious. And it allows passersby to be part of your in joke.

Which inevitably brings me to a discussion of people's desire to be part of exclusive groups. Or at least Americans' (and by that I mean people who are in the United States) desire for that. If I wear a shirt that says "dooce" on it, there is still a degree of exclusivity, since people who don't know what dooce is will say "what does your shirt mean", and people who do know what dooce is will just know. And in twenty years when I have kids who think my "vintage" clothing is alternately hideous and wonderful they will say "so you mean dooce was a website? what did it do? you mean you just read it? that's pretty funny"



I'm holding out for VR baby.