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Abercrombie & Fitch

2002-05-23 16:10:42+00 by Dan Lyke 7 comments

Since kids seem to be on our minds recently: Abercrombie & Fitch get more free publicity with "Kiss Me" and "Eye Candy" thongs for girls.

"It's not appropriate for a 7-year-old, but it is appropriate for a 10-year-old," said spokesman Hampton Carney. "Once you get about 10, you start to care about your underwear, and you start to care about your clothes."

This after their "Two Wongs(sic) can make it white" publicity stunt. Skipping over the "who, besides gay men and 10 year old girls wears Abercrombie & Fitch?" issue, I'd like to go off in a completely different direction: Do we help or hurt kids by prolonging "childhood"?

I'm of two minds about this: On the one hand, in that thread about spitballs I seem to be pushing adult responsibilities on kids early, on the other hand (and I'm too lazy to dig through the archives right now) I know I occasionally rant about not pushing children to adulthood any faster than we have to. Maybe it's because in the former case I'm talking responsibility, and the latter consumerism, and to a lesser extent learning patterns. So how do we, and should we, ask kids to emulate adults in restraining their behavior, while asking them not to emulate adults in other ways?

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Law Consumerism and advertising Education ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-05-24 20:35:20+00 by: Shawn [edit history]

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, actually. And I think the key is not that we push "adult responsibilities" but that we [should] push human responsibilities. I agree that kids should be allowed to enjoy their childhood, but I also believe this can absolutely be done within the bounds of acceptable human behavior. Growing up is a learning process. Human beings - whether young or old - are always growing, always learning, always testing their boundries. Sometimes there are consequenses. This is all part of the learning process. If we remove (or soften) the consequences, we inhibit the learning. Likewise if we artificially impose harsher consequences. Responsibility is the act of recognizing and accepting these consequences. It's not an "adult" thing, it's a human thing. And it doesn't require that one be safe, or careful, or even polite.

I believe that children are much more savy, smart, aware and wise than our society gives them credit for. And even among the numbers of children who currently are not in our day and age, I believe they certainly can be - just that those tendencies have been systematically conditioned out of them by hundreds of years of Victorian indoctrination. I don't buy into the artificially created[, self-fulfilling prophecy of] social separation of "childhood" and "adulthood". We are all human beings - some simply with more experience than others.

#Comment made: 2003-06-02 00:05:40.060607+00 by: the_truth_is_free

people say its wrong for a 7 year old to wear thongs they say it puts nasty thing into the minds of our children but lets say a young girl see's one & wants 1 then idiotic people cum runnin tellin her she'll look like a slut if she were 2 wear 1 now that lil girl wants 2 know what a slut is she discovers sex and turn in 2 a ho by the time she's 8 i think its very clear who's puttin those thoughts into the minds of pre teen all across the world besides 2 those people if ur 97 years old its not wrong but which one worse????

#Comment made: 2003-06-02 00:08:25.17663+00 by: the_truth_is_free

people say its wrong for a 7 year old to wear thongs they say it puts nasty thing into the minds of our children but lets say a young girl see's one & wants 1 then idiotic people cum runnin tellin her she'll look like a slut if she were 2 wear 1 now that lil girl wants 2 know what a slut is she discovers sex and turn in 2 a ho by the time she's 8 i think its very clear who's puttin those thoughts into the minds of pre teen all across the world besides 2 those people if ur 97 years old its not wrong but which one worse????

#Comment made: 2003-06-02 02:52:49.357508+00 by: Diane Reese

"cum runnin"? Now tell me, who has sex on their mind?

I have a response, but I can't make it in good conscience until the commenter learns how to spell and use proper English grammar. I'm just a stodgy old fart that way.

#Comment made: 2003-06-02 12:07:48.92227+00 by: meuon

Diane, I have my own poor online rambling style... and I am an sure it drives many Flutterbarians nuts. But at this point I refuse to even answer work related email when it is in chat-speak. Although I have flamed several people who have emailed job application style introductions and resumes it 'chat-speak', with one replying that they thought it was a job requirement to be able to do that for tech support chat (which we do not do), and said he was fluent in l33ts3@k (elite speak) as well, as if it were a language he studied in college, which, in a way, he probably did. Laughing..and crying at the same time.

#Comment made: 2003-06-02 13:31:44.684378+00 by: John Anderson [edit history]

Flutterbarians

Something about that looks... odd.

I think if I got an entire l33t-sp34|< resume, I'd be tempted to give the person an interview -- but if they didn't actually speak that way, they'd be out the door. That's probably just my fondness of MegaTokyo, though...

#Comment made: 2003-06-02 13:55:24.69937+00 by: meuon

A really elite 'hacker' knows that he can gain much more access and privs by looking and acting respectable. After meeting some world class pro's now working for the 'good guys', the overall sharpness of such minds shines even at communicating properly, in context, in either biz-speak or l33tsP3@k.