I’ve seen a huge surge in memes lately about people leaving the house wearing band merch and being asked questions about the band for example “name three songs”, “what are all the members called?”, “How long have you been a fan?”
For some odd reason, people wearing merch of bands they don’t know used to bother me but now it doesn’t because I really believe that people should be able to wear whatever they want (in terms of band merch) without having to meet certain requirements or pass a questionnaire.
But I do know some people that have a problem with people wearing merch of bands they don’t know, I’m here to say that this in my opinion is a form of elitism. You don’t get to gatekeep what people wear or demand that they like what you like, or listen to what you listen to.
It makes no sense to me that people get personally offended when people don’t know who certain older artists are or if they don’t listen to those artists. It has no impact on my life whether they wear those shirts or not and I don’t understand why anyone would actually question a stranger about their clothing choice.
I think telling others what to wear is just wrong, especially with stuff like band merch. I don’t understand why someone would wear merch from an artist that they don’t like or don’t listen to, but it doesn’t affect me. It would be nice if someone wearing band merch would at least know that they’re wearing merch but maybe they just liked the style and that’s why they bought it.
But I can see why some people might not like it when others wear merch from artists without knowing anything about them. When I see someone wearing merch from my favourite singer, I try to gather enough confidence to talk to them (because there are very few people who like that singer and I really want to find some people I can talk to about the music). If I manage to talk to them and it turns out that they have no idea that they’re wearing merch, I’d be a bit sad. But that’s a me issue, it has nothing to do with them and I wouldn’t tell them to stop wearing whatever they want
Exactly this! It doesn’t bother me to see people wearing merch and not knowing the band or singer, BUT if I saw someone that was wearing or possessing merch of my favorite singer, I’d be excited to talk to them. And if they said “I don’t know who that is; I’m just wearing this because it looks cool”, then I’d probably feel disappointed not that they were wearing the merch without knowing anything about this singer, but more disappointed that I actually thought I found someone who likes what I like only to find out that they really don’t.
At uni I’ve only received compliments on my band merch which is definitely a relief though I was preparing myself for comments of the negative variety!
Oof that’s surprising it tends to be Nirvana shirts that hit the most elitism because of the amount of places that sell them I’m glad nobody has stopped you in the street and asked you to name your favourite song by them
Ridiculous. People like what they like and there shouldn’t be any reason to judge. … Unless it’s friendly banter between friends and they know each other say it with love and jest.
Well, I just ordered a sunflower shirt from Post Malone’s merch website, which is also signed by him, but it hasn’t arrived yet, and I have the sunglasses that from the collab he did with Arnette. I was actually surprised to see the sunglasses being sold here, since it’s not very common to find things like that in my country.
This being the first time I’ve had a favorite artist in years and buying merch, the only time in the past I wore artist merch was when I was a teenager, but since I only wear band merch when I really like an artist, I’ve never experienced that type of elitism. But I feel that if I ever saw someone wearing merch with my favorite artist on it, I’d be so tempted to go up to them and ask what their favorite songs are.
Thank goodness I’m out of that era, it was absolutely annoying when they do all this gatekeeping rubbish. It’s just a piece of clothing, not a bag of coca1ne.
though I was preparing myself for comments of the negative variety!