Statement t-shirts, piercings and tattoos

People want to be heard. They want to be noticed. They want to express themselves. So they wear their opinion on a shirt.
Perhaps people wear statement t-shirts because they find them funny or fashionable. Maybe it happens to be their laundry day or perhaps they spilled something and needed a clean shirt. But no matter what the reason, I find that it often bothers me when people wear these t-shirts. Because is it really necessary to instantly make a statement in the way that having some catchy phrase written across your chest does it?
I suppose that all clothing makes a statement. The clothes we wear allow us to express something about ourselves. Even if unconsciously, we usually place people in some kind of category according to what they are wearing. ‘Hippie’, ‘Punker’, ‘Preppy’, ‘Grunge’. Just by looking at them. Even if you make the choice of not caring about what you wear, it says something about you, so I guess there is no escaping the fact that our clothes affect how we are perceived. But I think that the trend of statement t-shirts is taking it a bit far, especially because most of these slogans are really not all that great. In fact, I think most of them are rather pointless and some of the shirts are outright rude. DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE? , YOU SAY I’M A BITCH LIKE IT’S A BAD THING, etc.
I think that wearing shirts like these, at least the rude or offensive ones, may affect the way you are perceived to such an extent that certain people might steer clear of you because of the message you have chosen to convey by wearing the shirt.
This leads me to the topic of piercings and tattoos. Not too long ago, I was considering whether or not to get a septum piercing, or a so-called ‘bull-ring’ in my nose. A lot of the people around me had several facial piercings as well as tattoos and at the time I thought it would look good. But after discussing it with my mother, I gave it a second thought. She told me that she wasn’t going to stop me from piercing my nose, but that she did not find septum-piercings appealing and that she was very likely to pass judgment on someone who chose to wear a septum piercing.
After thinking it over, I chose to leave my face metal-free. I realized that if I put a ‘bull-ring’ in the middle of my face, the way people would perceive me would inevitably change. I think that a lot of people, especially from my parents’ generation would instantly see me as ‘rebellious’, ‘wild’, or ‘disobedient’. Although I simply liked the way the ring looked, the connotations that would come with it are not detachable. When people get piercings and tattoos, they change the way they are perceived. I could not help but wonder whether my friends had pierced their faces for aesthetical reasons, or because of the statement it makes. In a sense, tattoos and piercings are essentially long-lasting statement t-shirts. I know how much I have changed over the last couple of years, and can say with almost complete certainty that any tattoo I might have wanted to get a couple of years back would be nothing but regret permanently imprinted on my skin now. I think it is important to pay attention to how the choices you make when it comes to your appearance affects the way you are perceived.