Recently I was enjoying a hot cupa at my local beanery when a girl walked by, hanging off a dude's arm with the above blazoned across her chest.  That was bad enough, but as she moved on past I noticed it was also blazoned across her (not especially lovely) ass. Enough has been written on the phenomenon of ass word sweatpants that I'm not going to bother with that one, but the rise of the "I love my boyfriend" slogan has me baffled.

Someone explain this to me. I've seen a number of variations on these shirts in the wild, always worn by a certain type of young female, usually in the presence of a male, whom I assume is the referent. Is this a shirt a woman buys for herself? Is it worn as a reminder to herself, to other women or guys on the prowl? Does said boyfriend have in his wardrobe somewhere a "I Love my girlfriend" T-shirt? At the very least, I guess its transferrable to the next boyfriend.

Boggles the mind.

I’m a little amused by the hype surrounding Dollhouse. I’m not personally a Whedon hater; I enjoy the man’s work, but I’ll readily admit he only works within certain tropes, and exhibits a number of quirks that some may find…questionable. The Whedon fan machine (Das Uberwhedonmachina) on the other hand, would have you believe the man only gives birth to golden unicorns while farting rainbows.  Dollhouse is prime example. Months before the shows premiere, certain genre websites were spending unjustifiable amounts of fan energy trying to convince us, the fan populace, that Dollhouse wouldn’t suck. There are even Save Dollhouse fan campaigns already being organized. Here is the real problem kids; you’re going about this all wrong. 

First, you’re pretty much preaching to the choir. Joss Whedon is never going to have the mainstream crossover appeal of a J.J. Abrams or a Bryan Singer. Now, that’s not a bad thing. I personally respect Whedon for the fact that he has singular vision and voice even if it often brushes up against, and breathes heavily into the ear of creepy. 

Second, no matter how you feel about Whedon, there is a well documented history of his TV shows being molested by overzealous execs. Genre Works + Capitalist Pigs = Suck.

 Third, this was all Elisa Dushku’s idea. As far as I’m concerned she spent all her Faith cachet on Tru Calling. The account is empty. Insufficient Funds.

Which brings me to the root of fandom's problem. We as fans need to Stop. Stop with the pre-emptive "Save …" campaigns. Stop running out and buying overpriced tie-in crap, or the 15th"special edition" release of the same movie. We need to stop supporting stuff because of misplaced nostalgia for something that was good 20 years ago (Lucas, Romero, Miller…I’m looking at you). We need to stop fueling the fires of fan appeal mediocrity and start taking, and subsequently rejecting, things on their own merits.

Unless you’re really looking forward to the Punky Brewster reboot.