I want to start this with a disclaimer of I did no scientific research. I conduct no surveys. I did not even read any peer-reviewed material on this subject, but I might eventually because its something that hit me square between the eyes this last week. 

When did society get so lost? When did we start losing people at a cyclic rate (Marine terminology meaning quicker than normal)? Why are mental health issues on the rise especially among the Millennial generation? What makes people think they can say whatever they want without anybody checking them with reality?

Like I said I have no research on this but I want to take everyone back to the Early 2000s when it first became cool to wear shirts with saying on them. All of us in our 20s had them. “Half man, Half horse”, “You look like I need another drink”, “My other ride is your mom”, and “If I want your opinion I would give it to you”. Along with many other shirts with sayings, we had. Now those were all shirts I did actually own at one point because I was in my twenties and convinced that the laugh was more important than the message. 

The shirts all started funny and playful. Mostly the crews I hung out with the messages were all sexual because we were young and dumb. It was funny to us and meant very little to us that these messages could be viewed as inappropriate or hurtful. I had this shirt that said, “I wish I were a monkey so I could throw poop at you.” Which was funny until the day a young lady approached me and told me I had caused her child to want to throw poop that day because my shirt made him want to be a monkey. I brushed her off until a few days later when another young lady told me my shirt seemed pretty racist. I threw the shirt away because even though I was in it for the memes I wasn’t trying to be hurtful.

I don’t know when it went from shirts that were funny to just plain hurtful. People started walking around with shirts that said “Shut up” or “I don’t care”. We started seeing people with hateful and derogatory shirts in Walmart and the mall. Hot Topic started to spill into the streets and now these shirts and hoodies started showing up everywhere with evil and mean things on them.

This is when I think society took a downward spiral. We went from walking around laughing about funny shirts to getting abused by shirts. People started thinking that because I have a shirt that says bad word this and bad word that it was okay to act up in public. We even started coding them (i.e. Let’s Go Brandon) we all know what it meant and we still went with it because of “politics”. We stopped caring who we offended and what kids saw. We stopped caring about people around us.

This last week I was hanging out doing some shopping when I man came around the corner with a hoodie that said “Shhh Nobody Cares”. Now it shouldn’t bother me what other people’s shirts say but I already have depression issues and now I’m staring something in the face that is a lie my brain tells me a lot. Now even though it’s supposed to be funny and the guy probably doesn’t even know it he has ruined my day because without my consent I now have to spend hours getting my head right and getting myself back into the right head space to be me again.

I know sensitive right? WRONG!  We all run into this whether we admit to it or not if we run into the right words it can ruin your day. For example, I ran into a fentyanol meme a few weeks back making fun of people dying to it and it enraged me for longer than it should have. All because it was the right thing to upset me.

Now this can be true in an opposite way. I ran into one of those your wanted and loved person behind me hoodie and I smiled for an hour because you don’t wear that unless you mean it.

The reaction I had to both told me one thing that we as a society need to take off the meme shirts and hoodies and start wearing things that bring up those around us. As Christians, we should never wear a shirt that puts down anyone and/or gives the impression that we are putting a group of people down. I think when a lot of is think love our neighbors we think about the person that lives next door and not the person we pass in Walmart.

We as a society need to take ownership of who we are and realize it is our responsibility as members of a community to uplift not just ourselves but those around us. The goal should be to force God to make more mansions because we overpopulated heaven. Not laugh at the pain of others who read the nastiness of our shirt and hurt from the message.