An ode to the annual event t‑shirt

If you’ve been with TEDxSalem since the begin­ning, you’ve prob­a­bly noticed some­thing that occurred to me the oth­er day:

I’m build­ing up an impres­sive col­lec­tion of t‑shirts.

Not just reg­u­lar t‑shirts, obvi­ous­ly, but TEDxSalem offi­cial swag t‑shirts.

We accu­mu­late t‑shirts all our lives. High school clubs, col­lege mas­cots, sum­mer camp uni­forms, fundrais­ers, fam­i­ly reunions, home­com­ing theme days, some­times even Hal­loween cos­tumes.

Some peo­ple purge these extra­ne­ous pieces of cloth­ing with clock-like reg­u­lar­i­ty. Oth­ers have decades of his­to­ry buried deep in their clos­et, unearthed in a wash of nos­tal­gia dur­ing a move or rig­or­ous spring clean­ing. I’ve known cer­tain crafty folks to stitch their shirt col­lec­tions into quilts; the ulti­mate trib­ute to mem­o­ry.

When I grad­u­at­ed from col­lege, I had enough spir­it­ed appar­el for at least two weeks of out­fits. I kept only a pair of sweat­pants and, of course, a cou­ple t‑shirts.

We’re now four years deep into the grow­ing TEDxSalem tra­di­tion, and we’re grow­ing the t‑shirt col­lec­tion that goes along with it.

There’s some kind of mag­ic with these shirts. Each event had its own swag out­side the shirt: Cof­fee mugs, bags, pens. But there’s a per­ma­nence to the sym­bol and the sto­ry you lit­er­al­ly wear on your back.

Maybe you wear them to oth­er TED events, to proud­ly rep­re­sent from where you came. Maybe you wear it to the gym or to sleep in.

With­out them, would you remem­ber the themes and logos of pri­or years? Would you still be able to trace the nar­ra­tive of an evolv­ing TEDxSalem, from new­born Illu­mi­na­tion to sopho­moric Mox­ie and swag­ger­ing Fear­less?

If last year’s Fear­less was our junior year, grow­ing in con­fi­dence but not quite estab­lished yet, then we come into senior year, tri­umphant, with Rev­o­lu­tions. Our vic­to­ry lap. Only, we aren’t fin­ished yet. Next year we’ll have anoth­er TEDxSalem, with anoth­er theme and anoth­er logo.

And anoth­er t‑shirt.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem 2017

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.