from my friend who’s a stand-up
men will criticize women for not knowing the bands on their t-shirts but will wear floral patterns without being able to identify any of the flowers
Men will wear floral patterns?
Never heard of a Hawaiian shirt?
The ones with hibiscus all over them? I don’t wear them.
But you have heard of them <Jack_sparrow.jif>
I work a lot of college events, and I see a lot of vintage band shirts, with Dark Side of the Moon the most common. I always ask if they heard the album, and they say Yes only about 20% of the time, so I tell them that their homework assignment is to go home and listen to it tonight, and that it will change their life.
One girl was wearing a Metallica shirt, and she very enthusiastically said she LOVED them, because her Dad always plays them in the car. I could tell it was a genuine loving connection she had with her Dad over Metallica. Truly beautiful.
“Nirvana is just a state I’d like to achieve someday”
Oh I think you have some typos there.
Alternatively: I’m building my own state
There’s some truth to the joke though - a while ago one of the fast fashion brands, I think it was H&M, created a line of fake bands just to put on t-shirts and other things. It’s pretty sad.
It’s also ok to like a bands visual art even if you are not a fan of their musical art. Or I suppose the other way round too
I appreciate the anti-gatekeeping sentiment here, but I can’t reconcile that with the judgment I think we’d have for someone wearing a Che Guevara shirt without knowing who he was.
Perfectly reasonable.
To be fair their gen x and millennial parents probably still buy most of their clothes. I buy my son band shirts and he’s college age. He’s got Dropkick Murphy’s, NOFX, RTM, Nirvana and Rancid. He’d recognize their songs but I don’t know if he knows the names of the songs
As someone who grew up on Nirvana I’m in no place to gatekeep fashion. My clothes back then were so fucking big that gusts of wind picked me up like a kite. I had an empty wallet CHAINED to my belt for fucks sake.
I just carried around the chain, waving it around for fun. In hindsight it may have been menacing neurodivergence. I got really good at chain tricks!
empty wallet CHAINED to my belt for fucks sake.
That’s functional. The chain weighed you down so you didn’t drift away.
The wallet chain prevents you from getting robbed because it signals to everyone you have no money
You throw the wallet out like an anchor.
I NEED a single panel news paper comic of this visual.
Okay but the wallet chains (thicker the better, sagging little over knee) were cool
I love the LED Zeppelins, they’re such a nice design brand.
I thought that was a light bulb brand.
Or an illuminated aircraft brand.
I’m slightly annoyed, go on
Adult man here, I’m just happy my favorite band is still in the zeitgeist whatsoever.
This. Fuck those gatekeepers.
Fuck off with this gatekeeping bullshit.
Don’t be mad, this joke is so old and tired that a sunagogue considered it safe to tweet in 2021
yeah gatekeepers are lame. however, hehe funny meme :)
yet, wearing a band shirt implicates interest. imagine talking to sb using that as a lead and them being clueless. At least have a story why you’d wear a bands shirt you dont know (its my brothers etc.)
Nah. Eat an ass. I’m wearing it because nirvana is my favorite clothing brand.
yet, wearing a band shirt implicates interest. At least have a story why you’d wear a bands shirt you dont know (its my brothers etc.)
Absolutely not. I don’t even know what band I’m wearing the logo off, it just looked nice :)
Exactly. Gatekeeping exists for the purpose of bouncing predators and Nazis who front the idea of belonging and allyship from gaining access to the scene under false pretenses. I’d wager everyone of us has at some point worn a shirt, patch, or pin of some band we liked because of the design or the vibe but weren’t able to recite their entire catalog from memory. Hell, some of the bands fuck up trying to play their own deep cuts and B-sides years later.
Nah, fuck off. No one needs to pass your dumbass purity test to wear a certain shirt.
Wearing a sports jersey implicates interest as well but I won’t expect someone wearing a Buffalo Bills jersey to name our third string depth corner.
I’d rather be excited someone actually has interest in something I do rather than gatekeep that interest. I’d love to talk about the player depth of the Buffalo Bills with someone who only knows who Josh Allen is. It makes me happy sharing something I love and it will make them a bigger fan than they were yesterday.
If your entire fandom is based on knowing everything about it, you’re the piece of shit.
You started your fandom on something from nothing. There was a time you didn’t know a single song of the band you love, or a player on the team you watch. You didn’t know shit about it and now you do. Do the same for others and help them learn more, not be the school test on their knowledge.
My daughter wore a Motörhead body when she was 6 months old, and couldn’t name a single song of theirs. What a fucking poser
You: “Say mama, say dada.”
Her: “Overkill.”
🤘
“Lemmy Rules”
This type of nonsense actually kills the thing you’re trying to protect. What are you trying to prove? That some kid doesn’t know the songs? Sure, you know you’re right… but why milk it? Just say “come as you are” and share your passions with others.
Yeah, this is such a dumb territorial pissings. Just dive into good music before you get an aneurism. Moist vagina!
This dude is such a negative creep.
I wouldn’t have been able to name the songs as a kid, even if I knew them. For example, growing up listening to my parents’ radio, I already loved the Beatles, Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers, etc. - I could sing a lot of their songs, but didn’t have the connection to the artists in my brain yet. I just knew, “Oh hey, it’s that song I like.” Only when I got older and started building my own music collection did I start to connect the musician names and song names to the songs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case for kids in band T-shirts. Their parents bought them the shirt. Their parents probably play that musician’s music around their kid. The kid can like the music, wear the shirt, but still be unable to “name three songs” by the artist just because that information hasn’t come together for them yet.
I’m not going to gatekeep this but I will be sad when the conversation goes “cool {band} shirt! You ever listen to their live stuff?” and they go “what? It’s a band?”
One other problem with naming Nirvana songs is that their titles are often not words from the chorus like most mainstream songs.
I think most people who know Nirvana could name Smells like teen spirit even though it’s not in the lyrics. I suspect people could name Come as you are, since it’s the first lyric of the song.
But after that, I guess it might be Heart shaped box?
With Nirvana, when you really want to hear that one song and you go look it up, you always think, okay, what’s the song name? “Yeah!”? That can’t be right. And then you have to go through some process to pry it out of your memory until you remember it’s Lithium.
I recently learned that The Man Who Sold the World was actually a David Bowie song. Naturally, since it’s in the lyrics.
That was my thought too. Nirvana pops up on my playlists fairly regularly, but I doubt I could have listed 3 of their songs and I grew up with that shit. Reading your post was a few iterations of “Oh yeah, that’s what that song is called!”
Gimme the hum test any day though!
Yup. I could probably sing along to about 10 Nirvana songs, and even knowing the words to them I might know the names of two of them.
My favorite song of theirs is actually a cover: “Lake of Fire” by the Meat Puppets
It’s just so short!
