With the increase in popularity for ugly Christmas sweaters, I’ve noticed there’s been an influx of ones crossing the line of what makes them funny and what makes them inappropriate.
Earlier this month, Walmart had to remove a third party design from their website after customers complained about a sweater that implied drug use.
When the trend initially started, I actually enjoyed seeing people bring out the old shirts they were forced to wear. I even remember one or two I wasn’t a fan of when I was younger.
It was when companies started releasing silly sweaters that there became a need to out-do one another, and people just “had” to have the best one.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen tons of people wearing shirts that made me laugh because of a great pun or silly graphic. It’s one of the reasons I started looking forward to people wearing their ugly Christmas sweaters, because most got better to compete with the previous season.
It’s when they started to get inappropriate that I stopped enjoying the fad and it made me wonder how far people are going to go. When does it stop being a fun Christmas tradition and become an activity ruined because somebody went over the top?
For me, it’s when the really inappropriate shirts started being mass produced and people went out of their way to have the most outrageous caricature plastered on their chest. Like the design Walmart took down, some of them have just gone over the line. I don’t want to look at someone’s shirt and be grossed out, especially when it’s supposed to make me laugh.
The sweaters coming out increasingly got worse, and I’m not sure why companies and customers wanted them to. There’s a difference between wholesome fun and being inappropriate.
If we can’t do something like wear an ugly Christmas sweater without having a dirty message on it, what does that say about us?
I’ve bought a few different shirts over the years that I wear around the holidays, and none of them are tasteless. Most of them are actually cute, because I don’t see the point in buying something ugly because I wouldn’t want to wear it. All of the ones I own can be brought out at any time, such as a family function, adult party, and so on.
I hope this trend sticks with puns and silly jokes, because it may lose the fun aspect I’ve enjoyed over the years.
