Repar T here to tell you about reparTEES.

If there is one thing I can assert with near absolute certainty, it’s no one needs another t-shirt.

At the very least, everyone needs something else more than another t-shirt.

So why have I started a business to peddle t-shirts to people who don’t need them?

On the surface, this idea makes about as much sense as the majority of the content on the internet—which is to say very damn little.

If you think about it, there is not a lot on the internet, or in modern civilization for that matter, that we wouldn’t be better off without. I’m pretty sure a compelling case could be made for the assertion that humanity and our planet were better off before the internet or computers came into existence. Certainly, life seemed a little saner in some respects.

I have to wonder if I’m just adding to the noise? Creating more digital pollution? Am I just frittering away my limited remaining time here on earth with a meaningless distraction?

Another way to look at what I’m doing here… I know I’m contributing to capitalist exploitation by the very act of participating in capitalism. Clearly, any monetary transaction is either complicit in prior exploitations or has the potential to support some kind of exploitation somewhere in the future. That’s the way capitalism is set up. It is inescapable. Just by using the national currency of the nation in which I live, I’m tacitly endorsing all the atrocities, oppressions, deceptions, and corruption that country has perpetrated throughout its history.

Am I vain enough
Like many of us, I’m too vain for my own good. Which begs the question. Am I so vain I think I can participate in this system without being corrupted by it?

For sanity’s sake, I have to turn this question inside out and ask it another way. Is it possible for me to add real value by operating within a capitalist system awash in a tsunami of endless distractions, plastics, pollution, mostly useless consumer products, unnecessary services, rampant personal and corporate greed, alternative facts, and unlimited contradictory opinions? Can I play the game without getting sucked into its destructive vortex?

With a t-shirt?

Is is possible to add real value by creating something no one needs if it somehow offsets some of the insanity of our current world? If we can have carbon credits, surely we can have sanity credits.

But isn’t that what art is?

The deeper I delve into creating art, the more I understand that art is playing with perceptions within the status quo of the times in which the art is made.

In other words, art requires us to look at ourselves, to know ourselves in greater depth and with a little less ego.

That’s the challenge this project undertakes. It’s an art project. Like all art, it is totally useless in one sense, and infinitely practical in another.

One of the questions I’m trying to answer is, “Is it even possible to operate within the modern capitalist system of ‘civilized’ societies and support your loved ones ethically and without compromising my values?”

Theoretically, if I solve more and bigger problems than I create, I should be able to do this.

So, my art project has to solve some problems. Again, theoretically, it should be possible to solve multiple significant problems by creating something totally useless.

This website is my attempt to do that.

Serious problems

Our world has some serious problems that we are mostly ignoring. In the face of humanity’s current predicament, how do I justify using fossil fuels to create and ship t-shirts across the country to people who don’t need another t-shirt?

Isn’t this adding to the tsunami of existing problems?

This predicament requires that reparTEES be more than t-shirts.

So, what are reparTEES, really?

Essentially, they’re costumes that let you dress up as a cartoon character who has a certain persona while you’re wearing the reparTEE. Change your reparTEE, change your persona. It’s a way of playing with life instead of taking yourself too seriously. People who don’t take themselves too seriously are more fun to be around than people who take themselves too seriously. It’s a universal law of human nature.

This is an invaluable service to humanity. Human society is already an incoherent cartoon, it just needs a few more characters in costume. That’s where reparTEES enter the picture. We provide the costumes.

reparTEES also performs other useful functions for society. Here are some of society’s pressing problems that reparTEES address directly:

The Common Chit-Chat Affliction
When you’re wearing a reparTEE, people already feel they know you as soon as they see you. This familiarity allows you to effortlessly sublimate the chit-chat stage of any problem and eliminate the perceived need to spend a few minutes fill the air with bullshit for a few minutes. Over the life-span of a reparTEE, you can actually regain months of your life, essentially creating time to do things you’d rather be doing.

Holiday Hype Syndrome
Holiday Hype Syndrome is out of control. Literally. Our solution to Holiday Hype is to raise prices on holidays. We call these events UnSales. We don’t want to do anything that furthers this pernicious syndrome. Except for ‘Mothers Day.’ From my point of view, every day should be mother’s day! Don’t celebrate mother’s day, celebrate mothers! Mothers are heroes!

The Free-Shipping Delusion
Free shipping delusion is the latest of a vast spectrum of ‘free’ delusions that humans have become subjected to en masse almost continually throughout its history. Free is the word we humans use when we want to exploit someone or deceive them. It has been completely normalized in modern civilizations. It may even be the essence of modern civilizations. Check out this subtle variation on the word ‘free’ that people fall for every time—freedom. There’s nothing free about freedom! It’s one of the most expensive things there is!

Our solution to the Free-Shipping delusion is our trademark shipping service called, ‘Unfree shipping.’ Very cutting edge! And totally ‘unfree!’

Billionaire Baloney and Star Worship
All these delusions, afflictions and syndromes, like many others are manipulations being used by the modern mass media (M3)to test what works and doesn’t work for mass control of specific demographics of humanity. This activity is based on the one truth about humans that influencers and manipulators through the ages have always known—humans will believe anything. reparTEES are the only effective antidote to these disorders.

Taking yourself too seriously
Actually, the reparTEES go way beyond recommending not taking yourself too seriously. Instead, we recommend making fun of yourself as a way of playing with life instead of resisting it. reparTEES are an effortless way to rise above the insanity and stupidity, if only for a little while.

Pretending everything is ‘just fine’ all the time
The thing is, you don’t have to pretend everything is ‘just fine’ all the time. reparTEES makes it okay. That’s because, when you are wearing a reparTEE, you’re not trying to influence anyone, you’re just telling it like it is. That’s what unfluencers do. Tell it like it is. Just the opposite of what influencers do.

My dream is for reparTEES to help people connect in person, to feel good about being themselves, and to engage in lively conversations that solve problems and are punctuated with laughter.

reparTEES are designed to encourage reflection and conversation.  Check ’em out in the reparTEES store.

Meanwhile, if you’re not already doing it, I encourage you to live the story you want to tell by playing with the micro-stories that are woven into your life and through which your life is emerging. It’s an adventure that never stops! Not to mention, you’ll run across some great stories you’ll love telling. Only with reparTEES.

How cool is that?

We really are all in this together, till death do us part. Let’s do our best to make the best of things while we’re here. Together.

Your pen pal,
Repar T