The Market for Comedy Socks

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Silent Uprising in the Face of Conformity

Whatever path we end up on, we all have expectations to fulfil, a certain image or reputation, to be supplemented by suitably matched exterior packaging.

Smart, reliable, trendy, corporate, respectable, successful, sophisticated. Our personal brand evolves, all too often defined by how we would like others to perceive us.

I have lived a life of pseudo-uniformed compliance, forever in awe of tattooed mutants, human canvasses of living art, their unique existence punctuated with bull-like nostril piercings.

So few follow a path in life that allows them to be 100% authentic. For the rest of us, they invented comedy socks.

You see some bright spark saw the need for the drab masses to reclaim a molecule of originality in the face of corporate tedium.

Animal from The Muppets in mad drumming frenzy, Homer Simpson’s oafish form drinking Duff beer, cartoon duck bound and gagged with the caption ’shut the duck up’. Our secret unseen declaration of independence.

Comedy socks, the smug existence of which gets me through my day with a smidgen of rebellion. A silent uprising in the face of conformity.

The market for comedy socks appeals to the small child in us, who despite being suited and booted – briefcase in one hand, phone poised ready for deal-making action in the other – reminds us of who we were before we became the person we were pretending to be.

So I gaze curiously at the Goth on the train, with the green spiked hair and studded dog collar, warrior for the subculture of self expression. And I wonder if under the uber cool exterior of the artistically radical fashionista, hides a pair of M&S navy blue wool blends.