Maybe it's just me . . .

[pegkerr]

But I'd much prefer to celebrate my 50th birthday by getting a black belt than by reveling in the opportunity to dine in public wearing a purple dress and red hat. And by buying a lot of other tacky purple and red merchandise.

I kinda liked the idea of the Red Hat Society when it first came out, but I think they've been overtaken by merchandising greed and now they seem rather more cringe-inducing than empowering. And sdn is right, their website is really rather scary. If not downright blinding.

(Oh, and my fiftieth birthday is still three years away. Well, almost two.)

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"I kinda liked the idea of the Red Hat Society when it first came out, but I think they've been overtaken by merchandising greed and now they seem rather more cringe-inducing than empowering."

Yeah, exactly. As long as there are women who are still feeling empowered by joining the club, more power to them, but leave me out of it. It's annoying when I wear a red hat that I bought just because it was pretty and somebody asks me if I'm one of those Red Hat Ladies. I actually have a purple tie-dyed t-shirt with that poem on the front that I bought because I liked the color and the fit. I thought the poem was okay, but I had never heard of the Red Hat Ladies. Now I'm embarrassed to wear it, and use it mostly as a nightshirt.

I wonder what the woman who wrote the poem thinks.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I believe she is on record as actually having said that she really doesn't like wearing purple. She just thought it sounded good for the poem.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

That all these other people are making money off it, but not her? That poem was specifically mentioned in Wendy Cope's rant (http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2223830,00.html) about internet dissemination of poems as ripping off the actual poets.