I hadn't posted in about a week because I was away on a small tour of Eastern Europe with one of my bands. Such trips are always an opportunity to learn something new, and on one of the stops I saw an Ed Hardy store across the street from the venue. I had never seen this clothing in person - it isn't popular in my part of the world - but I had read much hatred directed at it. After seeing this stuff up close, I finally understood where that hate comes from.

These clothes function in a very similar way to the mansions of wealthy Gypsy families with their imposing size, large balconies, bright paint, colorful metal roofs, turrets etc. They say two things about the owner. One is "I have enough money for this" and the other says "I care a lot about how people perceive me, but not at all about how middle-class people perceive me". That signal irritates your social betters immensely because it tells them that you enjoy freedom from their status games. We have our own status games with their own rules, of course, though we might be a little more free because our games have much simpler rules. What matters, though, is that your betters see immediately that all the subtle little ways in which they keep each other in line do not work on you. Unsubtle hatred is the only option they have left, and unlike brands such as Coogi or Crown Holder, Ed Hardy clothes are worn mostly by white guys so it's not "racist" to unleash that hatred.

I find that unsubtle hatred very appealing. I'm no good at subtlety anyway. Middle-class people don't like us, we don't like them, and it's good to get that out in the open sometimes. (Now, I play in one band with some middle-class people. They're not really bad people, just kinda weird. They know I'm not like them and we're all OK with that.) I didn't buy anything at that store, though. All the designs are tattoo-based and I don't like tattoos. Hey, I'm old...