Last weekend while out clothes shopping with the boy, I was waiting by the changing rooms in Topman for what seemed like eons in the midst of rails and rails and galaxies of different jeans, which somehow all managed to look the same, when I spotted this t-shirt over on the back wall. At first I noticed it for its David Shrigley-esque illustration style, and was alarmed to think that after selling his artworks to Paperchase, now he was selling out to the Arcadia group. What next, Dorothy Perkins shopping bags with the ‘What were you thinking whilst you were having your brain sucked out’ illustration printed on them? Actually, that’d be really cool. Go sell out Shrigley! Propagate your ponderings for the masses to see.
But on closer inspection I realised it wasn’t David Shrigley at all, but another witty and mordant social commentator, who unfortunately remains anonymous. On the t-shirt was an illustration of a giant octopus-like monster with teeth rampaging through a city, destroying buildings with its huge tentacles. Huge flames were in the background and helicopters buzzed around like flies for it to swat. And there in the foreground, two figures in silhouette were standing on top of a building watching this scene unfold. And above one of these figures was a speech bubble that read, ‘I’m bored.’ It couldn’t have been a more fitting statement for me, standing as I was in Topman, left to watch guys with styled, self-conscious hair painfully pick jeans.
Yet when I thought about it a little longer, as I did have time to think, I realised it actually summed up modern life in general. It’s not actually rubbish as Blur claimed, it’s just boring. These days nothing’s new and you can get anything you want, anytime of day thanks to the internet. Films, TV programmes, porn. But instant gratification always leaves you unfulfilled and, well, bored. Then the next thing has to be bigger, dirtier or more violent to interest you, until you reach the point where watching a giant octopus destroy the city is just dull.
Still, trilby hats off to Topman for putting a decent illustration on a t-shirt for once, instead of the usual slogans like ‘I just moved you to the top of my to do list’, ‘You never forget your first pig’ or ‘I just came on Eileen’ (although that one is pretty funny). Topman selling t-shirts with biting social commentary – did I say nothing’s new? Clearly I was mistaken.
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