Abercrombie and Goebbels

Chris happens to have made himself highly unique (and, following his logic, therefore capable of great beauty); thoughtful and introspective to the point of near-relentlessness, his conversation has the fast, assured tone of a guy unaccustomed to meeting anyone smarter than himself. He's the sort of person who will ask, sincerely, "have you ever studied the philosophy of beauty?" ... and will then be capable of explaining his own genuinely intriguing thoughts on the topic, rather than simply parroting lines that his dialects professor underlined in a textbook. The kind of person who can elicit feelings of fear and inadequacy, who knows that he can have that effect, and who points it out while shrugging carelessly.

Last June, he watched Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality as part of Frameline, the local gay film festival. The film featured archival propaganda footage of Nazi youths -- attractive, playful, roughhousing boys, all eerily identical; delighted to all be together and united and same-ish. Sound familiar? "It was the easiest connect-the-dots I ever made," Chris recalls.

He described the similarities between Hitler's brand and Abercrombie's to friends as only a sort of a joke -- Chris never intended to actually do anything with the idea. But then he mentioned the idea of putting up satirical posters to a boy on whom he had a sort of a shy crush, and, well, you know how it goes. "At that point," he recalls, "I HAD to do it."

The comparison was particularly appealing to Chris; he harbors no particular ill will toward Abercrombie & Fitch necessarily, but he has a particular revulsion for "groupthink." He uses the word several times during our conversation, spitting it out as if it hurts him to say. What bugs him, he says, is "mindless conformity -- that people are willing to adopt a logo." He acknowledges that it's simply human nature to want to belong to a group, and even admits that there are some corporate brands that he willingly adopts (though he refuses to disclose which ones). But, he says, corporate branders like A&F start customers rolling in a dangerous snowball: first their wardrobe conforms, then increasing value is placed on body image, then on ideologically fitting in; "the mechanics of wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt," he says, "are identical to wearing a Nazi armband."

We're not sure that the voluntary shedding of one's identity is quite on par with complicity in one of history's greatest genocides, but then again, we don't know much about art. And there's certainly no arguing that those Abercrombie clones sure do bug the hell out of us -- we can't count how many times our teeth have been set on edge by screen names like "AFboi89" or a person's use of "Abercromie-ish" to describe themselves in their profile. You know the types we're talking about. Do these people set out to present themselves as being tedious and generic, or does it just come naturally?

"We're all capable of transcending that if we put a little more thought into it," says Chris. "That identification with a brand name is just another form of ... oppression." Immediately after he said that, he apologized for having claimed oppression, and asked us not to use the quote. Too late, ha ha! Whether or not he really meant that A&F is an oppressor, Chris' posters are an answer to the undeniable indoctrinating effect that the company's advertising has on us. And again, it's not Abercrombie that Chris is worked up about -- they just happen to have unluckily strayed into his crosshairs. His posters, in addition to hopefully impressing boys, are a reference to the dangers of thoughtless conformity. "People don't think farther than the brand," he laments, speaking simultaneously of A&F customers and Hitler's fans. "I don't think those boys knew what they were getting into. It's the same mentality that gets people to join the army and go to Iraq." So, we ask, the people who can be talked into shopping at Abercrombie are the same sort of people who would sign up to be Nazis? "Absolutely," says Chris.

Keep your eyes peeled for more of Chris' posters in the future; despite some panty-wadding on the part of Abercrombie's lawyers, he's having too much fun with the project to stop now. The goal, he says, is not to dilute A&F's brand; in fact, he couldn't care less about the company. He just wants people to stop and think about what they're doing, and if they're doing it because they want to, or because they want to prove something. "I don't have a responsibility to change the world," Chris breezily explains. "It doesn't come easily, figuring out who you are, what sort of a person you want to be. ... But it's possible to ... examine your thoughts and feelings, and ultimately change your behavior."

For now, someone -- or someTHING!!! -- has scratched the A&F logos off of the posters (Although work has already commenced on repairing and replacing them). Vandal-on-vandal violence, or some hapless retail bottom dispatched by HQ to do the lawyers' thug-work? Smells fishy to us, Officer Friday. Oh well, A&F can take it personally if they want to -- the big babies, all he did was compare them to Hitler -- Chris doesn't really hold their groupthinky branding scheming against them. He observes that it's only human nature to want to wear uniforms, and for corporations to try to numb their customers' personal quirks: "they should be allowed to do that," he says, "and I should be allowed to point out the insanity of it."