No Fear indeedy
I had a middle school English teacher who once provided the class with a weird meandering speech about how fear is good for us, and fear helps drive us. It was a response to the popular, and somewhat naseating t-shirt slogan/brand that had popped up on virtually every adolescent boy: the “No Fear” t-shirt.
The slogans tended to go over my head, and were simply nonsensical. I can’t remember if there was a “Would you like a little wine with your cheese?” shirt to riff off of the phrase “Would You like a little Cheese with your wine?”, though I remember my brother commenting that he would like such a shirt if not for the dagnabbed “No Fear” branding.
But one slogan struck me as … kind of fascist. And, in relation to the environment the t-shirt wearer was living in, plenty pathetic.
“If you’re not living life to the edge, you’re just taking up space!”
What does this even mean? How, exactly, do you “live life to the edge” while attending this small town middle school in Central Washington? How do you “live life to the edge” as an awkward 13 or 14 year old (or, for that matter, non-relatively non-awkward)?* Presumably this “No Fear” slogan is referring to unspecified athletic prowess… but that doesn’t fit this kid.
This was an affected attitude shift on this kid’s part, a mood change that undoubtedly troubled his parents. Imagine a confirmed bookworm who was always picked last on any PE team. (Yes, even after me… though, I managed to become a good soccer player and thus was moved upward in that line-up when we got around to soccer.)
And I wonder what are you supposed to do with everyone who is not “living their life to the edge” and thus is “taking up space”? Send them all to a Concentration Camp? What the hell are the marketing wizards of this t-shirt trying to tell the youth of America, exactly?
I guess Consumer culture is even more brutually exploitive and destructive on the young adolescent and post-adolescent Female Psyche. (I basically saw through it.)
* The basic emotional grounding of this time of at least my life is summed up in these lyrics:
I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I’m useless, but not for long
The future is coming on
It’s coming on
It’s coming on
It’s coming on
The key to “I’m useless” is that you are useless to society in general, and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact. Thus “living life to the edge” is not an option.