I once heard that there are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t. Upon first hearing that short attempt at humor several years ago, I of course questioned its validity to the sneering face of the obnoxious kid who bore the statement on his T-shirt. Immediately after asking, I remembered that binary had a number system composed exclusively of 0s and 1s, realizing that I had been made the fool by a shirt. I remember the pompous comment the little punk made back to me regarding my ignorance of a computer language (which had apparently become standard knowledge for all children of age ten). I had a great epiphany at that moment, realizing that all the people in the world could be divided into two classes: those with the tenacity to wear shirts with words on them that take more than a second to read and those that know their proper place as a person who wears clothes.
Like businessmen subtly rank one another on the expensiveness of their wardrobes, so should we judge each other on a far more basic level: words on shirts. You know well enough those I speak of. They’re the ones who assume themselves to be on a higher pedestal than the rest of us, so arrogant and proud in themselves that they are willing to broadcast their thoughts to anyone who can see their torso. Wordshirts, as they will hereafter be called, represent the worst class of people. Haughtiness is their trademark and they clearly consider themselves so superior to us ordinary plain garb clad folk. Are they so supercilious that they feel above speaking to ordinary people and need a shirt to do their talking? Yes. Yes, indeed.
If you turn now and look at your shirt and see a Nike or Abercrombie written across your chest, worry not, for you do not fit the heinous class of wordshirts. Short inscriptions are nothing to be ashamed of, for they do not express the air of superiority that can be felt around wordshirts. Some simple writing is nothing to fret over, as it is usually part of either an artistic, expressive design or a form of a brand tag. But if you look down and see stitched into the cloth the sentence “I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person,” or an equally pathetic attempt at comedy, then I implore you, if you have any shred of dignity left, remove the blasphemous attire and use it as kindling, for the fireplace is the only proper place where such apparel should be stored. Such is the mark of those who can only be classified as wordshirts and none should aspire to bear that mark.
It is equally important to commend those who have not surrendered to wordshirt temptations and have stayed resolute in their commitment to limiting long sentences that have surely been responsible for many trips, falls, and ‘bumping in to’s. It is you who holds this world together, keeping the fabric of our existence strong and without text spewed across it. You are the honest and noble folk I speak to, forced to stand by the side of your cousins in ‘funny’ shirts. Thus, it is extremely important to ensure that when looking at humanity as a whole, society classifies you not with the rabble of wordshirts but rather gives you a respectful and modest category in which to inhabit. I grieve for the pain you must feel, but know at least that while you may be forced to stand next to a wordshirt on a deli line, or in a movie theater, you will stand in contrast to them. Remember, you are different and must be cataloged as such on the scale of human judgment.
Some say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but for the wordshirts, they’ve already exposed their pages to me with the juvenile and overly confident script they so willing share with onlookers and I do not like what I see. It’s necessary to divide people into such categories, for the shirt is one of the first impressions we as individuals see of one another. Thus, the simplest form of dividing people is to acknowledge whether or not the person you’re speaking to displays excessive writing across their chest. This is not overly harsh judgment, for assertions made on the basis of the content of a t-shirt are true one hundred and twelve percent of the time. This system notifies people right away if they are speaking to a civil, intelligent, and modest person or an arrogant buffoon with an inflated ego and an overwhelming air of underserved confidence and accomplishment.
In leaving you, I urge the rest of the good people in the world to take action. Sit not idly by while a wordshirt plays hacky-sack on the side walk. Put him in his place by strong verbal denunciations. If history has taught us anything, it’s that talking down to our ideological opponents will always make them go away. Together, we shall reclaim this land of ours from the greasy grip of the wordshirts. For now however, we must simply rest with the knowledge that although we cannot yet eradicate them, at least we can acknowledge they represent a different class of man than we and it is much less clean.