How he’s selling it on his Tumblr might be convoluted, but I’m sold. There is a heritage of punks (and Tyler is nothing if not a punk) appropriating oppressive symbols. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren often used Nazi symbols in their Sex Pistols-era Seditionaries clothing, which they sold to London punks in their boutique, but it always felt a little empty-shock without substance. Without the politics to make it a truly radical statement, something as vitriolic as a swastika was reduced to another purposeless, toxic way to seem edgy, like smoking cigarettes to piss off your parents. In fact, Odd Future has stupidly used the swastika in some distasteful merchandise before. But this new shirt does something else-it’s childish, yes, but earnestly so. Tyler uses the aesthetics of cool while being deliberate about what he’s using it for: to say that being gay is cool. Throw a rainbow and the word 'PRIDE' together, as Tyler does here, and you have a fairly universal statement of gay strength. (Tyler couldn’t resist putting his brand name 'GOLF' on there, but even that non sequitur isn’t a distraction.) I imagine straight skaters wearing this shirt around the suburbs and flying the flag for gay rights whether they ever intended to.
