Opinion: Band Shirt Posers

Many students can be seen wearing band t-shirts in the hallway, but how many of them actually listen to the bands they wear?

The term “poser” has become increasingly popular as band t-shirts become more mainstream.

A poser is someone who pretends to be a part of a certain fan group, with little to no knowledge of the group they’re claiming to be a part of.

When some of these students were asked to name songs or albums written by the band on their shirts, only 30% were successful. One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said “I don’t even know who that is,” even though the singer’s face was clearly printed on her sweatshirt.

I have to admit there have been times before where I’ve heard one or two songs from a band but saw a shirt I really liked with them on it, so I can see not being able to list every single detail. This does not excuse the amount of people who couldn’t even name a single song played by the artist they were wearing.

When looking for people to interview, the most common band shirts we saw were Nirvana, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and Sublime. In turn, these shirts were also the ones where not a single person could name a song by any of these artists, one student couldn’t even tell us what genre of music they played.

In our opinion, posers are disrespecting true music lovers. Clothing with bands such as AC/DC and Nirvana are almost always sold out, not leaving merch for true fans.

Posers are more common now than ever, but, unfortunately, there’s nothing that can be done.