I was at the mall today. I rarely ever go to the mall because it's just too far away from my house. Game-stop was having some sort of summer sale so I decided to check it out. Despite the sale prices I saw nothing worth picking up, even at a discount. So I made my way to the bookstore on the other side of the mall.

 About halfway there something caught my attention. Inside a store called "Hot Topic" there was a black shirt with "Zombie Spiderman" on it. In case you don't know who Zombie Spiderman is, he's a Zombified version of Spiderman from an alternate dimension. Anyway Spiderman is an iconic super hero, and the T-Shirt had him posed in an iconic crouching position. But it's not iconic "Hero" Spiderman. It's Zombie Spidey. (Who by the way is just as nice as the original Spidey except that he's controlled by a lust for brains. A lust he cannot control, and must obey.) The first time you see this image your mind stops and goes "WTF?". I'm not normally a clothes shopper, but I had to have this shirt.

 While I was inside Hot Topic I noticed they had gaming and anime shirts as well. I never knew a clothing store actually had this sort of stuff. Unfortunately the majority of the gaming shirts had a lot to do with Mario and Zelda (and were black). A lot of the Anime Shirts had to do with what I would refer to as "junk anime". Things like Naruto, Dragonball Z, and Inuyasha (Ok Inuyasha is actually pretty good in the beginning. But then it just drags on and turns into this whole DBZesque, "I has more powers than you!!11!!1!" garbage.) I left the store but on my way out I read the bag that contained my shirt. "Celebrating 30 years of punk. 1976-2006."

Ah so this explains it. The abundance of black shirts, the junk anime, and the all too easy themes on some of the gamer shirts. I had just purchased something from an "emo store". I could just imagine some little emo kid (who's not a gamer) buying a Zelda or Mario shirt, and having no clue as to what it truly signified. I could see this same kid picking up a DBZ T-Shirt, not understanding what sort of garbage DBZ actually is. I had no clue that society had lumped gamers, comic book readers, and anime fans in with these "people".

 Now someone was going to respond to this and say,"But Hot Topic was just trying to expand it's horizons and get new customers. Plus emo kids like some of these things". Well it's true that emo kids do like the same things as nerds. A lot of emo kids are a bit nerdesque. But Hot Topic wasn't trying to expand it's horizons. I went to their web site to check out what else they had on their online store. All the models wearing the clothing were kids with piercings and fake black hair. Not one of the models was a normal guy who just happened to like video games or comic books. Also 9/10 of the shirts on their site are black. Hot Topic isn't really trying to get new business. If they were trying to attract non-emo comic, gaming and anime fans they would use normal models and a little color for their shirts. No, they are trying to tell emo kids that gaming, and comics are emo now.

 I have a problem with this. I don't want to be lumped together with the emo crowd. I like anime, but I don't watch Inuyasha, or DBZ. I enjoy good non-cliche, well written anime. I don't go to Kung Fu classes and pretend to be deadly. I'd rather do MMA if I were to do that sort of thing. I don't die my hair black. I enjoy the Discovery Channel, and National Geographic. I'm not some damned furry, emo kid who poses as a gamer, and buys katanas only to show them off on my myspace page. And I regret the existence of said emo kid posing as things he's not. I regret them just as much as real scientists regret global warming critics, and intelligent design "theorists", who claim to be scientists.

 Anyway I guess I have no proper ending to this. But I think you see where I stand now. The day that someone mistakingly calls me emo, they are going to get verbally pwned.