i was assigned last week in my advertising and pr class to find and describe a way in which companies and entrepreneurs take advantage of college kids' mindsets to make a quick and easy buck. it's interesting because even though we tend to pride ourselves on being intellectual and 'above' the influence of petty desires, we're really still just as vulnerable as anyone else when it comes to being suckered into buying crap. some of my friends wrote about facebook and similar websites, football tickets, textbooks, etc. when i was thinking about what i wanted to do, i luckily came across an acquaintance who lives down the hall in my dorm. he had an armful of t-shirts he'd just bought downtown for cheap, which he showed me. most of them were obama '08 shirts (which tempted me to write about how political candidates and others make ridiculous amounts of money selling garbage like bumper stickers, signs, buttons, and t-shirts), but one had the face of che guevara in his famous pose on the front. i was interested because at the time i didn't really know much about him, though i'd seen his face on a lot of things around town, including shirts, hats, signs, and fliers. i asked the fellow why's he'd bought it and he said something like that it looked cool and he thought che was an interesting person. i decided to write my short essay on che guevara's 'stuff', and began my research. for those of you don't know, che was a famous revolutionary who was a part of several big time rebellions across the globe. he is heralded by many to be a great and interesting hero who fought against corruption and 'the system'. most of those people, however, haven't done their homework. a little research will show you that this che fellow isn't all he's cracked up to be. his revolutions involved civilian murders, assassinations, kidnapping, systematic execution, and kidnapping. furthermore, of all the revolutions he was involved in (i think about half a dozen) only one was ever successful to any signifciant extent; the one in Cuba, which helped put Fidel Castro in power (and that just went so well, didn't it?)
i wrote my essay based on this and how enterprising people spot a college kid's desire to seem 'cool' and 'independant' by having that guy's face on their chest and make loads of money off of it. i got an A-
anyways, to my point: if you're one of those tools who has a che t-shirt and wears it without knowing what you're doing, stop. that is, unless you hate capitalism and support murder.
if you want to wear a shirt with a great revolutionary on it, find one with joan of ark, ghandi, or thomas jefferson. someone who actually accomplished something, at least.
