Fashion is Fascism!

I remember that somewhere around late middle school to early high school, back when I thought that I would actually achieve something by 25, I had this idea to write a song about how Fashion and Fascism were virtually the same. Draped in a leather trench coat, sporting hair below my waist, and mixing various shirts my mom felt flattered by rotund torso with band tees and black jeans, I suppose that I may have been the perfect awkward candidate. It was to be missal to all teenagers and twenty-somethings imprisoned in the gyves of popular culture: an anthem for those fleeing its yoke. After all, weren't the Nazis' uniforms pretty sleek? Fashion! Checkmate.

I never fit into any particular clique in high school. Sure, I listened to Metal, had long hair, and wore a trench coat; but I liked to smile, be silly, and was religious, so I didn't really fit in completely with the Freaks. I loved the Internet, books, science fiction, and fantasy; but I was horrible at science and mathematics, and didn't really play any video games except for Age of Empires and GoldenEye, so I was not a solid nerd. By the end of my high school career, I was even on good terms with the preps and suburban thugs. The assortment of kids I did hang out with were similar, having nowhere better to sit at lunch or breakfast — not so much outcasts as loose ends. In middle school, we had come to name ourselves The Reject Table, and even drafted a constitution/manifesto of sorts, at one point going so far as to exiling a member to what we called The Reject Reject Table; the high school equivalent, however, was much more amorphous and carried no such fidelity.

I saw that the multitude formed a rigid construct of darkness, writhing blinded and motionless in its own labyrinth. We imposed self-segregation, and our balkanisation had led to docility, and the docility to the devolution of civilisation. The divide was clear, but I never had any real ambitions of saving them. The goal had always been to rage forth, assaulting their groomed and manicured sensibilities with a simple plan:

1. Form a band;
2. Get famous;
3. Get on an MTV awards show;
4. Play 'Fashion Is Fascism'.

They'd laughed at me because I was different, so now I would laugh at them because they were the same! I think that 14-year old me would be stupefied as to why such a simple plan never panned out. After all, how hard could it be to get famous? But I never foresaw the obvious: that I and those like me are the punchline of the human condition.

Perhaps there was something to my angst.