It's Not Radical Anymore

On my way home today I passed a street corner where four teens were standing waiting for the crossing signal and I got a dash of 80s whiplash. Three of these kids looked like the average student of the past couple years... but "one of these kids [was] not like the others, one of these kids [was] not the same..."

(Time to pla-ay our game!? Oh, yeah! That was one of my favorite parts of Sesame Street. I like to relive it as often as possible.)

This young man was wearing a black muscle shirt and a pair of black and white checkered shorts that A.C. Slater would have celebrated in his first few years at Bayside. In an effort to protect my fragile mind I grasped wildly for a solution to the seeming time-warp-- of COURSE! These kids are on their way to a "retro" dance. At their high school which... couldn't possibly be in session yet on the 7th of August.

FAIL!

The warning lights began to go off in my time machine-- the flux capacitor was definitely fluxing as the stoplight changed and I crossed the intersection, but I still believed that with determination I could muster more than enough rationalization to banish this anomaly to the "Retro Dance" file... and then it happened. He moved away from the others, turned his face to the sun... and let the light glint off his hair gel and melt my brain.

This child had a "swoop" atop his forehead to rival Jon "Duckie" Cryer himself... and a party in the back that Achy Breaky Billy Ray would have admired.

This is not something you can create just for a theme dance, my friends. This young man actually committed (with his hair) to those forsaken style choices of the past. It almost makes a person want to pull over and start an intervention.

I know about the heartache of layered t-shirts and socks, kids. This is serious stuff. I know you think, "Oh, I'll just do a little side-ponytail for a laugh. It doesn't mean anything." But you're wrong. Soon you'll be looking in the mirror wondering why that ponytail has so little volume. You'll start teasing it out a bit just to improve the look, and from teasing to ratting is a slippery slope, my friends. Before you know it you'll be out $10 in contraband White Rain aerosol and you'll be agonizing over whether to go with the electric blue mascara that matches your plastic bracelets or the hot pink that matches your lipstick.

This young man was probably wearing ill-fitting jeans and distressed-graphic t-shirts two months ago, and some unscrupulous IZOD hustler managed to lure him down the day-glo path with a skateboard t-shirt or a pair of double-laced high-tops.

Watch out, America. Those "retro logo" t-shirts are a gateway trend. If we don't resist them I'm going to be faced with classrooms full of kids cracked-out on popped-collars and parachute pants, and I don't think I can face a world where Whitney tells me those children are the future.