Mac OS X

This was given to me, thrown away and recovered.
At first, my mom got this shirt for me as a giveaway. Apple was handing them out, promoting their new operating system. When I got the shirt I was just starting high school and was very against the whole idea of Macs, I just thought Windows was better. So this shirt sat around for a long time collecting dust. Well, it was so neglected that my dad snatched it up as a brush cleaning rag. I don't know for sure how many times he used it but the paint sure stuck.
This is a completely unique shirt. When I first got it, I put it way on the bottom of my drawers. It was clearly too big, plain white, with a few light elements and represented something I didn't support. Once it got a few touch-ups -and I realized that Macs weren't that bad after all- I fell in love with this shirt. Firstly, retro electronics advertising is usually funny, if not classic. Secondly, the splatter-paint actually fits with Apple's campaign. And I'm not even worried about it being white anymore, spilling food or drink on it will only enhance the design!
When this shirt was new it had the blue gradient "X" on the front, printed in 4 color. It represents Macintosh's "new" operating system "OS X" that they were due to release in the near future. It was a drastic change for them in terms of ease of use as well as a substantial graphical enhancement. On the shoulders were just 2 lines of text and their logo. "Coming to a Macintosh near you." And their campaign's tagline at the time, "Think Different". To jog your memory, these were the ads that featured black and white photos of famous people who changed history. Now this shirt has all of that but covered with blue, green, orange, red and brown paint all over it. Think different indeed.
I wear this whenever I want to be a poser. A hipster, indie, technophile. I mean, I suppose I am a compu-prude once and a while but I like to think I am more traditional and passive most of the time. The ideas and motifs that this shirt represent are just awesome: Man vs. Technology, creativity, retro nostalgia, fine art, found art, and whatever the viewer makes up in their head. If someone comes up to me and says that this is the coolest idea they've seen, then sure, I thought of it. Or if they think, "Wow, that really is a great commentary on [whatever]" of course it is, I'm clearly a genius.

When I pulled this out of the laundry or wherever it was stashed I suppose I was in a different mindset. It was fresh, it was new, it had a completely changed meaning. In high school I used Macs for video production, in college I used them for the Adobe suite and by now I am an avid iPad, iPhone, and MacBook user. Don't get me wrong, my 2 desktops are both PCs and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. When I wear this shirt I remember my dad. It reminds me to be original, to keep my mind open, to make mistakes, and that sometimes the best things in life are free.