Christmas Jumper Day is just a load of bellends showing off
It has nothing to do with seasonal cheer or charity
Jack RivlinCrazes come and go, but sometimes they just need killing off.
Today is Christmas Jumper Day, completing the revival of naff Xmas knitwear.
At first it was ironic, maybe even hip, now it’s everywhere. Tonight, town centres across the country will be awash with idiots, who, fresh from shaving away their Movember moustache have now graduated to a Primark snowman jumper.
Like every fad, it has a charity association (Christmas Jumper Day is in aid of Save the Children) which is great news, except only a minute minority of people wearing them will be doing anything at all for charity.
They’ve spent their last few quid paying for some child in a Bangladeshi sweatshop to add an extra carrot on to their snowman.
The thing is, these zany jumpers aren’t original at all. Asda sold ten million last year to shoppers who think they are making a quirky statement.
“Look at the reindeer on my jumper – I’m mad, I am. I know everyone thinks I’m a right tit, but I don’t care!” they say to the mirror.
If you are one of these people, please understand: you are not mad or ridiculous, you are participating in a banal consumer experience along with millions of other people.
It’s not even hand-knitted
Christmas jumpers aren’t ugly by the way, but they are kitsch, pseudo-original shmaltz.
Wearing Rudolph’s face on your chest isn’t quirky or cute – it makes you look like a wet playgroup assistant called Lolly. Which apparently is the look everyone is going for.
Christmas jumpers remind me of those blokes who have cuddly toys and needlessly mention how much they love their mum because they want girls to think they are sweet.
Their popularity is another sugar-coated victory for the cutesification of everything, where every experience belongs in the label of an Innocent Smoothie, a John Lewis advert or a BuzzFeed listicle. Vom.
And because everyone’s got one, the jumpers have mutated from slightly annoying but basically tolerable trend to an aggressive game of one-upmanship.
I bet he’s wearing this to a curry with the boys in Shoreditch tonight
Much like the rise of bad taste fancy dress, it has nothing to do with sharing a joke – it’s about who can get the most attention.
Now everyone is scrambling to get the most “out there” design – jumpers with LED lights, built in fireplaces and detachable sleighs.
How long is it before someone turns up in one actually made of reindeer?
If you want evidence that Christmas jumpers have jumped the shark, pick up a copy of Zoo magazine, because they’ve only gone and done a list of the maddest ones, including the “snowman with a boner” and the “reindeer shagging”. Here they are, proving my point:
Your good pals here at ZOO are here to aid you in your mission to resemble a right embarrassing mug top-notch Christmas gent: We filter out the crap threads, and leave you with only the finest, err…crap ones. ‘Tis the season to eat drink, be merry and look an utter prat after all, so here’s our top 10 naughty knits for your viewing horror…
The game is up: lads’ mags are where funny trends go to die.
Call me a scrooge if you like, but I dressed as Father Christmas at a party last weekend, and no one cared.
They were too busy looking at someone’s Christmas jumper which had a pouch to hold your iPhone.
This isn’t about seasonal cheer, it’s just a load of bellends showing off.