Abercrombie & Fitch to Goths: Get Lost!

[tikistitch]

Did everyone get a chance to read this Boing Boing link?

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/08/teenagers_test_first.html

Here's a link to the original article, which is worth reading:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_2785449

We've been having a running disagreement with Mr. Tikistitch regarding the Goth look. Mr. Tiki's instinct is to shun youngsters who sport what are in his opinion too many tattoos or piercings, whereas we always fight to urge to coo and squeal embarassingly over what we find especially adorable examples of heavily mascara'd kids. Then again, as many many aeons ago, we sported pink-dyed hair artfully chopped to 1/2 inch in length, perhaps this is because we bin there.

Comments

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I've often found that the more metal a kid has embedded in its face, the nicer it is. As for eye make-up, I grew up in the 70s. Two words: bitch, please.

Abercrombie were the brain trust behind the Children's Thong. I wouldn't be caught dead in the place.

[ex-faultyapa58.livejournal.com]

hey!!

theres nothing wrong with that look.

Sometimes, thpse are the nicest people. Weird how that works. ;-)

Although, the 1/2 inch hair... you really did that? I'm too chicken to do that... :-)

[ex-faultyapa58.livejournal.com]

^^ me too.

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

It wasn't *vibrant* pink. The color we had back then was pretty crappy, so it was more like pink highlights. But, yeah, I have monstrously thick hair, so I have a lot, even when I'm nearly scalped.

You know Obi-Wan's hairstyle in The Phantom Menace? That was basically me. Only with pink in it (or blue, or once she convinced me on black, which was a mistake). And on a *girl* of course! ^_^

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

I have friends who are BIG fans of Abercrombie. Though they're mostly gay men. In fact, absolutely *all* of them are gay men. ^_^

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Tell them to switch to Structure. It's much, much gayer.

Mmmm

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of pink hair...that family restaurant a la mode doll you have is of Pudding from the hentai series Famuries Senshi Pudding. The restaurant she works at is a family restaurant called " A la mode "

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Ah! That explains much. My ghastly homophobic ex-boss once worked for Structure.

Re: Mmmm

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

I have a hentai doll? Really? Thanks for the info--I'll try to keep her well away from naughty tentacles.

[mmymoon.livejournal.com]

Heh -- I don't know, I find it hard to debate "mallgoth"ism and general goth at the same time. Obviously, the fourteen year olds with ripped up black clothing and as many piercings as they can con out of their parents (or endure themselves) are purposefully trying to project... something. Anyone who can't figure out to take out their piercings if applying to a normal-type place is just dim.

(And any real goth applying to an A&F... wouldn't happen in real life. I've known goths who worked in Christian bookstores -- perfectly understandable. A goth in A&F, however, is not. ;P)

But, you know, I'm an adult. I consider myself goth and regularly go to goth clubs, if I can find ones that are well ventilated enough and have non-sucky DJs. My entire circle of friends in college was, basically, the adult goth crowd -- which, for all intents and purposes was the adult GEEK crowd. Mallgoths aside, all adult goths I know are just big fat effing geeks... with fashion sense. There's more of Elfquest than of Evil in adult goths, goes my favorite saying. I point to Voltaire as evidence of all of this.

Oh, I had my pink crew cut and my pink mohawk and my pink and purple striped curls... and dyed them back to solid brown for interviews. But now, grad school awaits! MWAHAHAHAAHAH!

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Agreed, she did kinda look like "a preppie's idea of what a goth kid might look like filtered through Hot Topic." ^_^ I just thought it was kind funny to have mommies snatching away their babies because she'd applied an extra layer of mascara.

The most punked up I've been in my entire life was first couple years of grad school. In retrospect, in my case, it may have been a mistake, as my lab consisted of a bunch of white boy jocks, and my advisor ended up perpetually semi-freaked-out around me. Possibly, it was the only thing that kept me sane.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

A children's thong? That's so....wrong.

Of course, I wouldn't be caught dead in A&F either. Their whole you-should-be-East-Coast-Ivy league-old-money-wannabe vibe is appalling. Not to mention that you should be white, perferably anglo-saxon protestant.

As for eye make-up, I grew up in the 70s. Two words: bitch, please. I hear you. I still remember the tri-colour eye shadow and such.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

I think I would have been goth as a teen except that style really hadn't been inventing when I was a teen (i.e. the 70's). Still, I wore mostly black - or otherwise dark colours - in high school and college with the palest base make-up and fairly dark eye shadow. I just wasn't as extreme enough (obvious enough) to be goth. After college, I remember being on this kick of only wearing b&w. Well, we all get over things.

I have no issues with goths, in fact my experience has always been that they're mostly the nicest people. It's always be nice to them and they'll be nice to you. That's true with most people, but it's espeically true with goths. When I worked for the central library, my favourite customer had a multicoloured mowhawk. He was the only regular library-user to always ask how I was and to invariably say please and thank. (In fact, I saw him recently at a restaurant and he gave me a hug and said he missed me.)

[middle-savagery.livejournal.com]

Most of goth and Aberzombie fashion is just so bad. "OMG if I dress goth I might not get a mall job." I wish these twits would have spent time collecting money for Sudan or something.

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Aberzombie, heehee.

A mall job is kinda stupid, but the hiring process if pretty rife with unconscious discrimination of all sorts. There's been a lot of research that shows if, say, you send in two identical resumes to a Help Wanted ad, one with a picture of an attractive person attached, and the other with an ugly person, the good-looking person will get more replies.

What's maybe more worrisome are studies that show if you send in two identical resumes, one with a white-sounding name, and the other with an African American-sounding name, the white-sounding applicant will get more replies. Levitt talks about this in Freakonomics. The goth girl can always take off the mascara, but if you're the unattractive person, or the black person, you're kinda SOL.

[twotone]

This wasn't a mall job, but a friend of mine apparently had this happen. The interviewer was super-excited by his resume, totally gung-ho on the phone... but as soon as they met in person, was suddenly not sure that they were taking applications. A-mazing what still goes on in this day and age.

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Wow!

The reason the article originally intrigued me is that I do medical research, and there's a lot of evidence that *doctors* can show the same sorts of biases. Maybe you've heard that if a man and a woman show up in the ER, both exhibiting cardiac symptoms, everything else being equal, some studies show the *man* is more likely to be treated?

I was reading a study the other day where African-Americans in King County were reporting experiences with doctors--BAD experiences--and just thinking, Icky! I'd *never* want to go to the doctor if I had experience of being treated that way.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

They never actually made it, IIRC. The catalogue announcement generated a public uproar and an assload of publicity, but it would be cynical to imply that they did it on purpose.