Toddling along on the intarweebs tonight, trying to find some equilibrium between this week's dose of sad (poor old Heath) and glad (looks like the HD format war is over!), I came upon this enlightening press release about a new website at Nicthus.com, which offers apparel for young Christians "with a message that it is cool to be Christian... Some of the messages on the clothing are intentionally ambiguous, fun and often with an ironic twist."
But hey, don't just take their word for it! Want to see just how cool they really are? Check the logo!
There. If that isn't officially the coolest thing ever, I'll eat my copy of Pat Boone's In a Metal Mood. I mean, shit, the fact that the fish has got shades would have been enough to make me want to be him in the worst possible way. But look! The motherfucker's got shades and a goatee! Damn, dawg! Creamed jeans are made of this! Even James Bond is gonna have to pack up his license to kill and go home, now the fish is in the house. Finally I see what I've been doing wrong all these years. If I'd known about the tsunami-like levels of mad cool that just radiates from the shades/goatee combination, damn, I bet by now I would have already worked my way through the waitstaff of every Hooter's in town and would be halfway through the Texas Bikini Team. But no, the best I ever managed to figure out on my own was a pair of my dad's old bifocals and a Charlie Chan moustache. Clearly, coolness has eluded me as a concept. Where have you been all this time when I needed guidance, Mr. Hipsterbeatnikfish?
Thing is, though, I looked at some of this apparel on the site itself. And, well, I don't see that it's really as cool as all that. I mean, it doesn't seem like the sort of thing the fish would wear, you know, if he was gonna represent. And some of them don't seem especially Christian, either. Like, there are these designs promoting Intelligent Design, for one thing. And as we keep being told by its proponents, Intelligent Design has nothing to do with religion. Right? So I guess I'm confused about that. I'm also confused by shirts that say things like "thump thump" with no explanation. And the explanation the website gives me doesn't help to clear anything up.
Who's that knocking and what do they want?
We think it might be God trying to get our attention. He just might have something to say to us. Do you think we would respond better if we actually heard the knocking or, um, thumping?
What is a thump? Is it the sound your heart makes? A peck on the shoulder to get you to notice something? A knock on the door? The bass note in a great song? Granted it's a shirt that will get a lot of attention and more than a few questions.
I'm still not sure if that's an actual explanation of what the shirt means, or an exercise in free verse. I'm even more baffled by the shirt that says "splat!", whose meaning is explained in this way: "What is the sound of creation? When God creates someone, and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Uh...what? Is this like Zen Christianity now? And are they referring to God, the act of creation, or the created someone by the word "it"? And are they really telling us that the creation of the universe was accompanied by the monumental sound of a splat? Are they replacing the Big Bang theory with the Big Dump theory? Or is this, like, a joke, and is that what makes it "cool"?
I have so much to learn!
Really, I have to admire the way the gang at Nicthus went about their, um, market research. You know, for how to appeal to 21st century youth by being all "humorous, edgy, thought-provoking," and "stylish." I don't see how you could fail with a campaign like this:
...the brand name Nicthus was formed from a combination of the words 'beatnik' for young, hip and cool, and 'icthus.' The beatnik was an icon of the "cool" generation in the 1950s...
An icon of the 1950's!
That is sooo fucking 2008, dudes! What an ironic twist!
I am having a difficult time dealing with how cool this is.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a difficult time trying to figure out how they combine Christianity with three drugged out radicals, two of which were gay. That's Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac for you un-hip people.
ReplyDeleteSo, Jesus's new symbol is a homosexual, a Jewish homosexual, and an amphetamine-addicted writer. I'm sure many of his jokes began with those three walking into a bar.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there is a growing movement of "cool" Christianity, and it's friggin' scary. Check out "Righteous" by Lauren Sandler, and plan on nightmares.
ReplyDelete>>Intelligent Design has nothing to do with religion. Right? <<
ReplyDeleteWhat they actually say is that when they "detect" design, the mere fact of detection does not provide information about who did the designing. Of course, most people who believe in ID will make the assumption that the Designer is the Christian god, but that is not an automatic requirement of the "theory." (Just as acceptance of evolutionary theory does not require one to be an atheist, although a disproportionately large percentage of those who do accept it are atheists.)
Although, Brontodon, I would point out that between your two examples, the ID proponents are the dishonest ones. The claim that "the mere fact of detection does not provide information about who did the designing," while credible on its face, doesn't hold up when you know it's just their ploy to bypass church/state legality issues. (The fact that leading ID figures have, in their own writings, made quite a lot of hay about their religious motives, like Wells and Dembski, doesn't help either.) As has been obvious for a long time, their rhetoric notwithstanding, intelligent design has always been a Trojan Horse for getting religion into science classes.
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