Open Letter Wednesday: Dear American Apparel

Every Wednesday, you get a peek inside the mail bag. In this case, that bag is full of letters I write to ask questions we all want answered…or maybe just me.

Dear American Apparel,

I know you like to be provocative in your advertising. You like flashing nipple on occasion, ads with post adolescent crotch bearing lollipop suckers and showing sorta-dirty young hipsters in various stages of undress as a means of driving sales of your over-priced, poorly made clothing. Like Calvin Klein’s child pornography series of ads, you like pushing the envelope and, God knows, I have no problem with seeing semi-naked chicks. I encourage it!

But, I’m really just tired of this overwrought campaign of Polaroid-esque photos making not-so-vague allusion to orgasms and sex and orgies. It’s just…boring.

It’s amazing that you could make sex seem bland and uninteresting, but, really, you have, mainly because I don’t believe you anymore. It’s one thing to so some cute young girl with a emo haircut posing in boys underwear and a tank top. It’s another to show this:

Really? REALLY? A bunch of half naked Magnum PI’s was the best you could do for an ad selling glorified tighty whities??? Or how about this one?

Are you suggesting that this Canadian porn star who specializes in anal (I looked it up on Wikipedia – what?) gets off to tube socks?

What I find most disturbing about these ads is how tiring they make sex seem like chore you perform to make yourself feel marginally good for a few fleeting moments before going back to your weepy, slacker pose. Even an orgasm is so NOT special, socks are a fantasy and being naked is just something to do when you’re bored. How in God’s name were you able to make kids simultaneously feel good about being naked (assuming they are skinny and hot) and be completely disinterested at the same time? It’s disturbingly brilliant.

To make matters worse, you sell clothes most of us could find at a thrift store and wouldn’t even wear in the first place because we aren’t going roller skating in 1978 or to homecoming in 1985. If that weren’t enough, they are expensive and poorly made. Way to take that reduce the “American” part of your name to a clever stereotype.

I know clueless little hipsters buy your stuff on the basis of its popularity and being all risque and pseudo-dirty makes you the cool clothing kid on the block, but your oh-so provocative ads not even that provocative anymore.

They’re just boring, which is ridiculous considering their content. How about, just make better clothes next time?

Thanks for listening.

Jeff

P.S. Porn stars and tube socks? Really? Sigh.