I bought Misfits t-shirts when I was young because I liked the band.
And I still buy bands' shirts because I like the bands. Honestly, most bands suck. When I find a band I like, I like to support it -- you know, become a "fan," as some people call it. Buy their stuff. It's not more complicated than that, searching for "authenticity," etc. (Maybe for some...) As for the consumer good being "cheap" -- a Crass wall flag for $30 ain't cheap to me. (Neither is that $60 Killing Joke shirt! I'll make my own on Cafe Press!)
The Misfits-at-ExxonMobil surrealism for me is because during the late 80s there was what we had called The Satanic Panic, fueled by Geraldo specials (YouTube has some hilarious clips of this stuff) and Tipper Gore's PMRC. In schools in Plano, TX, where I grew up, you could be sent home for wearing more than 50% black. I was personally interrogated by a school principal for wearing black and found in the school library reading a collection of horror stories by Lovecraft, Poe, Robert Bloch, Guy de Maupassant -- he was concerned, some cult killings had recently taken place in Matamoros, Mexico. You could also be expelled for wearing a Misfits t-shirt, as the shirts tended to be very gruesome (Pushead art), and black. A sign of Satanism or cult activity. Police advisors would come give talks at the schools about it.
For me it's not about authenticity. It's about seeing something I associate in my past with a lot of fuckwit adults and even peers treating me like shit for once liking -- every time I go buy gas. So there's still bitterness about that.
I know plenty of pieces have been written about co-optation, etc.
-B.
Blackmail wrote:
"So what statement's really being made if they're buying a Misfits t-shirt one place or another really? It's still a cheap consumer good meant to confer some degree of authenticity upon the wearer, right?"