Message Tshirts at the Mall

Clearly, I have become quite the academic mind, as evidenced by the title of this post! I abandoned my lab this afternoon in favor of the mall. It was full of moms and kids, teens just out of school, and it also houses a weakness of mine: Auntie Anne's pretzels. The Glazin' Raisin, sans dipping icing, is my favorite one of the moment. So I sat with my treat, and people watched. I had people watched my way on foot to the pretzel and got to take in a lot of cheap teen fashion. Which is when the whole concept of the message tee infiltrated my brain. I saw one girl wearing a shirt that says "I only want what I can't have" and it got me thinking, is that true for her? And if so, is this a direct warning for the universe? It doesn't make sense to buy and wear a tee shirt like that if you don't somehow identify with the message emblazoned on it. What kind of communication is it? And furthermore, do people take seriously the messages they put on their bodies? My friend Brian has a tee shirt that says "I just woke up" and in fact, he wears it mostly on those occasions to class, where he is inevitably late--it's an explicit message. It never ceases to make me laugh out loud, and Aaron always makes a point to loudly exclaim "Lookin' good, Brian!" We clearly get it. Teenage boys tend to wear shirts with sexually innuendo-ed messages, I've noticed, that just scream to the world "I'm a sexual being! I am solely under the influence of hormones! They even pick out my clothes for me!" A parent of one of our clinic's clients wears a tee shirt that says "I don't know and I don't care." Which also might be true... but do you want people to identify that kind of attitude with YOU? I gotta say, it's not a good omen for therapy compliance. I am often surprised at how negative the tee shirts are, and would not be surprised to find corresponding low self esteems among the wearers, or aggressive streaks ("Put on your big girl panties and deal with it!"), or some other aspect of personality that's glaring you right in the face. After my pretzel was long gone, I went and got myself a Wonder Woman tee shirt.