Obviously, my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge has attracted the attention of copious T-shirt retailers the world over, so a large volume of donated tees from them have been products of their own creation. Businesses who aren’t in the apparel racket have also been donating tees, but their designs are strictly of the self-promotional variety – tees that they’ve had knocked up for events, plastered in sponsor graphics, web addresses and branding.
For Day 160 I am wearing a more modest rendition of the latter. This bright red Speaker City T-shirt is only branded once throughout the garment - the white logo centred on the chest.
But here’s the twist.
The Harrison-based technology emporium boasts six retail outlets, is estimated to be worth three and a half million dollars, has associations with rap artist Snoop Dogg (or Snoop Cat or whatever he’s called at the moment), and is known for “slashing prices on everything from beepers to DVD players”.
But the company do not know that their T-shirt is featured as part of my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge and they never will. I’m not even going to place links to their website in this post like I normally do.
Why?
Because they did not donate this T-shirt to me - I bought it.
What?
That’s right, I bought a promotional T-shirt.
I decided to part ways with my cash for a one-time-use, throw away, bulk-produced garment most commonly seen at trade fairs, shop floors and sales events, that under normal circumstances I could have obtained for free by simply badgering the company staff.
But you see, its procurement was not under normal circumstances.
There were no staff. No sales events. No retail outlets at all in fact.
Speaker City isn’t real.
It is not a trading company; it doesn’t exist. It is absolute fiction – a made up electronics store created for the hit comedy Old School.
So today’s T-Shirt is in fact a spin-off that nods towards the rhetoric of Old School without directly referencing it, allowing the designer to rake in profits from the movie’s popularity without spending a lengthy stint in the court house getting lanced by its lawyers. This tee is the underlying principle of a subculture at work, and as you can see, I was drawn into it while the punch lines were still ringing in my ears.
