I wore my Batman socks to work the other day.
I like them a lot, even though they don’t match anything I own. They were a Christmas present, which showed the giver (my wife) knows a great deal about me. Perhaps too much.
I was so proud of these socks of mine that I showed them to my co-worker, Bob Hoose.
“Neat!” he said. “I’m sure that Bruce Wayne is wearing Paul Asay socks right now!”
Which got me thinking: Would Bruce Wayne ever wear Batman socks?
Why yes. Yes he would. Any socks that Mr. Wayne would own and wear are, by definition, Batman socks. But I doubt very much that he would wear branded Batman socks. That would be kinda silly. And he would have a point.
Wearing my Batman socks takes me no closer to actually being Batman. For that, I would need a troubled childhood, an insane work ethic and a much larger bank account. My socks do not make me look more like Batman. If I wanted socks that would look like socks Batman would actually wear, they’d be solid black. And possibly armored.
And yet, these socks are special. Why? Why do we—or, at least, why do most of us—buy things or make things or own things that somehow connect us to some sort of beloved cultural brand? Why do we like to brand ourselves with the entertainment we love?
Consider: This Christmas, I bought my wife a Downton Abbey cookbook. My daughter got my son a Hobbit Lego set. Last year, I stuffed my son’s stocking with a “companion cube” (from Portal 2) and a stuffed Ice King (from Adventure Time). My daughter received a small facsimile of Rarity (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). Our house is filled with throwaway tchotchkes linked to Star Wars and Lost and The X-Files and on and on and on. These aren’t videos, mind you: These are toys. Or aprons. Or socks. Ancillary products that really have nothing to do with the actual movie or television show, other than the fact that someone’s making money off of them.
I’m not alone. I’m sure there are parents who’ve held rummage sales to get rid of all their kids’ old (and sociologically sullied) Hannah Montana backpacks and toothbrushes. I’ve seen children’s whole bedrooms seemingly copyrighted by Marvel Comics or Disney.
And don’t think it’s just kids or immature movie reviewers who are prone to such branding. Consider that Downton Abbey is now licensing everything from furniture to fashion to wine. The recently ended show Breaking Bad (not something for the kiddos) offers cufflinks, collectors art and “Los Pollos Hermanos” lunch sacks. I know adults who own Iron Man masks and “official” Star Wars lightsabers that must’ve set them back a two-week paycheck.
But the question remains. Why?
Maybe we like to be part of a “tribe.” After all, many of us wear something or display something that sets us off as Christians—a cross around the neck, a fish on the back bumper. It’s how we identify ourselves. “This is important to me,” these things say. “If you want to know who I am, this is part of it.”
Like it or not, the entertainment we consume becomes a part of us, too. It’s shorthand, in a way: a secret sigil that both sets us apart and marks us as part of a group (whether the group itself likes or cares). If someone’s impressed with my Batman socks, I know that I have a little something in common with them. If they inch slowly away … well, that tells me something, too.
And maybe we give these things to others as a way of telling them, non-verbally, that we know what they like. We get it, even if we don’t have quite the same taste. I know this is important to you, we say. I understand you a little.
Entertainment is funny. We tend to think of it sometimes as such a throwaway thing. And yet, when you see how deeply some of it has incorporated into our lives, it’s not so throwaway at all. We value it. They become a part of us—so much so that we want whatever qualities they have to rub off on us. We want, in a way, to be branded. It takes up a little piece of our soul. And so it lands on our sole, too. Or at least if you own a pair of Batman socks, it does.
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