You're not getting my buck.

There are moments when I could pull out my camera and take a picture. A picture is not only worth a thousand words but can be a nexus of a thousand thoughts.

While I was walking toward the barber shop, I walked past Hollister where I saw an obese kid sitting on the steps. I wanted to take a picture because this guy was sitting there, eating his frozen dots. Behind him were the mannequins of incredibly fit people. I’m talking about muscles that begin to look grotesque. The contrast was something that I wanted to capture: fit and unfit. Reality and image.

I will not dance around it—I hate Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. While American Eagle and Aeropostale are virtual clones of the other two, they don’t provoke me much. It’s that exclusion is the image that Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch give out. Every time that I go past one of their stores, I feel like I can’t shop there. They might as well throw up a sign that says “You must be thin, beautiful, and rich to enter.” The fact that their stores are frequently decorated in a style that is closed and dark only adds to the air exclusivity. And it doesn’t help their case any when they openly admit that they market to a crowd that can pull off their image. I don’t get nearly as worked up with American Eagle and Aeropostale. While, it may take a minor miracle for me to find a size 38/40 in one of their stores, at least they have been fairly welcoming in my experiences.

While I was walking on, I was imagining that that guy who was sitting on the steps was waiting for his thinner friends to come back out of the store. I mean, why would he want to go in there when he is not wanted in the first place?