One of my minor problems (which I do not think even counts as a first world problem) is that I do not own enough beer branded clothing (except for baseball caps – I have a lot of those).
Perhaps I could fix it by visiting the Victoria Market on a Sunday. They sell all kinds of bogan clothing items there on Sundays.
Anywho, I was in Cotton On at Highpoint West this morning, looking to buy some cargo shorts, and noticed that amongst the various t-shirts featuring Mickey Mouse and various prestigious US Universities, there were two t-shirt designs with Fosters Lager as the main theme.
I took a closer look at the price tag, and decided that $34.99 is a bit too dear for me to become a walking advertisement for a hard to find beer. The flip side of the price tag did catch my attention however – it had something like 18+ on it.
I am not about to encourage underage drinking, and I will have some very minor reservations about the appropriateness of teenagers wearing beer logo t-shirts (although I think it is very cute when parents bring their toddlers into a pub), but I think it is silly to expressly prohibit the sale of t-shirts with beer logos on them to minors.
After all, you can’t get drunk from wearing a beer logo t-shirt. Or can you?
Lost For Words! 
I find youth to be very impressionable. I was. I sought brands that I thought represented something I wanted to be. Marlboro red cigarettes, levis, ray ban sunglasses, any beer that had serious cred (I even avoided Corona as I thought only wankers drank it, yet I drank Millers because it featured in a movie I liked with a rockabilly undercurrent). Yep, they were all representations of who I wanted to be; a rough and ready cowboy come rockabilly rebel.
It was a few years later before I started to become more comfortable in my own skin. I realised it was when I stopped trying to be something, I finally became myself.
Anyway, put a brand in the hands of the cool kids and the rest will follow. An age old marketing strategy.
I’ll leave you with this question: how would you feel about tobacco brands on kids t-shirts?
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