Here’s What Every Item of Clothing You Wear Says About You

Alright so the setup to this one is this: there is such a thing as a "podcast co-host shirt". Look, here’s the tweet:

Here’s the bit from Modcloth, the online store that sells it:

And I mean fair play because it is a very "guys!! don't forget our Patreon has new rewards up!!" kind of shirt. Very "extremely slowly reading the details of a 20-year-old murder out off Wikipedia". Serving executive Blue Apron ad placement realness. But it makes you think of other clothes, does it not? Of the things we wear, and what they say about us as a person. How we project ourselves to the world around us through our sartorial choices. How every hat, every t-shirt, every accessory and every shoe says to the world: hey, world. This… this is me.

Here’s who you are based on what you wear.

“Yuh hi officers. The dealers are in the upstairs bedroom. Nobody invited them, they just came in! Yuh. Oh, whoops, I dropped the wallet my dad gave me… who’s in the army, by the way—”

It’s basically impossible to spend more than a day in east London without bumping into one of these girls, sorry. Etsy page dedicated to disruptive cross-stitching. Has a special sideways smile she does in selfies and group photos. Always sits down in the pub with a coat on her lap. Oh, g— oh, god. She’s: yeah she’s talking about Harry Potter again. Fucking hell. “Dobby was oppressed—“ can I get anyone a pint? Anyone? Just please give me an excuse to get up and go to the bar instead. Can I get anyone a pint?

Joke’s on me here because these are my actual glasses but every time I wear them I feel a bit like Revolver Ocelot when he grafted Liquid’s hand onto him, suddenly violently overtaken by someone else’s personality, a mask on top of my own, only in this case mine is a lad called Rory who says he’s from Hackney but actually very much is not, and I keep getting this irrepressible need to describe things as either “hoppy” or “sour”, those are the literal only two adjectives I know—

Really easy to text girls like this because all you have to do is say ‘doggo’ and send them a picture of an animal like once every two days

√ Takes loads of Instagram stories of entirely empty overground carriages because the commute from LCF to his parents’ house on the residential outskirts of London takes an hour-and-a-half even though his Tinder bio is just the pin emoji followed by the word ‘London’
√ Once had a panic attack at Carnival
√ Spends every Christmas with his parents in Dubai and got given £6,000 for his last birthday
√ [ Extended montage of scuffling sounds coming from a nightclub smoking area] “I listen to grime, bruv! So yeah, I think I can say it!”

Had to have the concept of Wetherspoons very carefully explained to him over a 30-minute conversation during Fresher’s Week but now he’s a complete convert, jugs of Blue Lagoon and everything, stayed in a Spoons Hotel once just for the laugh of it, Spoons Spoons Spoons, I Love It Mate, It’s Sick, all of which will dissipate entirely overnight when, after a year-and-a-half of travelling, he’ll get a £55k starting salary job at his father’s company, finance a Merc and only ever go to rooftop bars in St. Paul’s.

"My flatmate’s having a really bad time of it actually and your bedroom is right below hers so if you could turn down the one song you’ve been playing at a medium volume on your record player, yeah? I have your landlord’s number inexplicably and I’m not afraid to text him about this, incessantly, exaggerating the agony of hearing mild noise thru the floor more and more every time, until he has no real option but to evict you and keep your deposit, yeah? Just think before you play a one song at 4PM on a Sunday."

You know those friend-of-a-friends who happen to be flathunting around the same time as you and you end up agreeing to go thirds on a three-bed with? And you’re in the pub before looking at some place in Homerton and she goes "so what’s your budget then, like one a month? One-two a month?" And you realise they are talking about one thousand two hundred pounds, per month? Each? And you realise suddenly that they’ve never paid rent in their life because their dad just direct debits it straight to the landlord? And you end up saying you’ll stay in the box room because "I don’t need much space, honestly!" but it’s actually just so you get to pay less rent per month as a result of it? And it’s still somehow £900? This is their tracksuit. They never cook because every night they Uber Eats themselves some Wagamama. Every time the house gets messy they go and stay a night at a hotel. Glam mum comes to visit one day and brings you one of those big Diptique candles, which they actually light instead of keeping as precious holy decorations. Rich people are absolute madheads.

One of those weird lads who, hours after you finished up a really agonising ends-at-7AM-with-your-nostrils-burning sesh with him, posts a really calm and wholesome-looking picture from the Tate Modern of him wearing a little beanie hat and looking at a painting, Like: how?

√ Keeps advertising stock trading seminars which you’re pretty sure is just a complex pyramid scheme
√ Comments on Bella Hadid’s selfies as if she will actually notice him
√ ‘How much for sex? Lol. I’m a nice guy you know.’ [ seconds pass] ‘You’re not even all that you know. a 7 rejecting a 10. mad.’ [ days pass, 4am occurs] ‘LOOKS FADE, YEAH? GOOD GUYS DON’T COME AROUND OFTEN’

Somehow wearing six coats at once and keeps talking about xG, and when you invite him over to yours to watch Champions League and eat Domino’s with the boys he keeps turning the audio commentary off to put the Guardian football podcast on instead. Please stop talking to me about the St. Pauli youth team mate, I’m just trying to get excited about the World Cup.

Does that thing where you post two selfies of slightly different poses in front of a ringlight that gets 1.2K favourites, for some reason. Stays up until 3AM every night looking at Spongebob memes but doesn’t know why she’s tired all the time. Has read receipts on. That sort of thing.

√ Hour late to his job as a barista at one of those £4-a-latte places which is filled with ill-placed cheeseplants with the leaves all crushed and brown
√ Not a single lampshade on any of the lightbulbs in his room, not even one lampshade
√ Gives you paintings for your birthday which, out of sheer politeness, you are duty-bound to keep for the next three to four house moves

My editor said I’m allowed exactly two digs at the rest of the staff around me because any more than that and I’ll never make friends but: nobody here ever knows exactly what day payday is and all we drink instead of water is Old Blue Last beer, please save us all from this hell.

‘Guys wow the GoFundme is looking pretty empty (£120 of £10,000 raised) and only six of you turned up to the planning meeting I organised above the Star of Bethy Green, can we start taking this a bit more seriously please? Actual charities are really on my case about whether my plan to just print tote bags and @ Theresa May telling her to “fuck off” is really going to do anything to further the cause (still undecided on cause btw: if you RSVP you MUST attend planning meetings). We need to fight back!’

Instagram Story the day Lil Peep died was just a load of black and white videos of him crying a single tear and a whole bit where he very slowly lit a candle, and anyway now it’s 3AM on a Friday night and despite ghosting you six weeks ago he’s on WhatsApp sending pictures of his new tattoo and asking if he can go down on you

"Nah man we can’t use my account to get one, they all cancel on me. Use your phone yeah and I’ll get you back when we get to the place. Definitely won’t instantly disappear into the dark recesses of a warehouse rave never to be seen again, like last time this happened."

√ Celebrates a "birthday month"
√ "INTERESTing guys only. do NOT ask me to just come for a drink with you. think outside the box! ASK ME ON AN ACTIVITY DATE"
√ Actually does adult colouring-in books

What did these lads do before vaping? Do you remember. You went to school with on, didn’t you. Liam. What did he do before vaping? Who was he before vaping happened? I know I knew one – I knew I talked to one, went to the pub with one – and now: who was he before there was vaping? All he does know is do huge smoke rings and pushes them with his hands in the direction of a single flickering laser lamp while two sad silent girls just watch him do it. Wears big structural hoodies and always smells faintly of vaped bubblegum. But who was he before this happened? Who was he?

1 Day After Payday: “Uber Uber Uber Uber! Uber Uber Uber Uber! Deliveroo Deliveroo! Uber Uber Uber Uber!”
3 Days After Payday: [sound of scrolling the Grailed website for one-and-a-half actual hours] “What do you think of this £400 fleece?”
8 Days After Payday: “Lads we’ve got to look for somewhere cheaper to live. I can’t live like this. The bank keeps texting me about overdraft fees.”
20 Days After Payday: [sound of typing the words "can u sell ur blood" into Google] “Mate can I borrow a mug of pasta off you? I think I might honestly die if you say no.”

Honestly I spend most of my clothes budget on old football shirts off eBay which I do not ever actually wear, please don’t listen to me in any way shape or form

@joelgolby