The Hot Topic Effect

What I’ve learned about politics from Trump merch

OK this Hot Topic is way flipping cooler than the one my friends and I frequented in Mankato, Minnesota. The gargoyles! The palm trees! I would have bought 10 Bad Kitty shirts here. (SOURCE: © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons)

This post includes offensive language, particularly pertaining to women. Such is politics in 2024. Anyway. Just so you know going in.

---

In high school, my favorite t-shirt was a Hot Topic purchase. It was a red baby T with the words “BAD KITTY” written in rhinestones across the chest. I still own it. Here is a photo.

I believe we can all agree that it is rad as hell.

Now, if you were to ask 16-year-old Danielle what exactly she meant by “Bad Kitty” – what message she was sending the world – I don’t think she would have had an answer beyond, “It’s funny.”

And had you asked her to elaborate, she would have sighed. You just don’t get it.

Clearly, what I liked about it was that it confused and worried the uptight adults around me, man. What a bunch of squares. I was EDGY. And when people asked me what the shirt meant, it only reinforced that I was EDGY and others didn’t GET IT.

(Yes, hello, hi, I was a teenage edgelord.)