The totemism behind corporate t-shirts

This was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse on April 16, 2016.

The corporate t-shirt tells the employees that they have been accepted into the “clan” and that they belong (so long as they play by the rules). But then all honeymoons come to an end. Along with this change in our work status, the corporate t-shirt also goes from riches to rags and gets relegated to being worn for doing the occasional backyard chore.

American Indian Totem (CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay)

When I mow the backyard (which is not very often) I usually wear a t-shirt that I got from a company I worked for some years ago. That corporate t-shirt is one of a few similar ones I have kept aside to wear for such hot and sweaty jobs. When I mow is also the time when I tend to lapse into faux-intellectual reveries about various life-changing questions (as giving the grass a haircut is not in itself a mind-boggling exercise anyway.)

Recently, during one of these Eureka moments, I concluded that these corporate t-shirts may tell us more about human nature and cultural evolution than we realise. The way we relate to them - how we favour them or discard them - appears to have an acute similarity to the totemism that used to be practiced by supposedly “primitive” societies.

The term totem derives from the Algonquin Native American word ototemanwhich means approximately that “He (she) is a relative of mine”, as French anthropologist Claude-Levi Strauss pointed out. A broad definition of totemism based on this refers to the use of a plant or animal or “created object” by a social group as guardians are emblems for the group. As historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto notes, respect for the totem need not be restricted to blood relatives, but someone can also be ascribed to the clan without being borne to it. This is more so with “group totemism” which extended the concept from clans to tribes to large groups of individuals with common goals. Armesto adds that totemism moreover defines the group and also distinguishes it from others. When you wear a corporate t-shirt it keeps telling the world - whether or not you are constantly conscious of it - of the relationship you have/had with that organisation.

In the olden days, our ancestors would have told us of the symbolism carried by a particular totem - a carved stone or a pole, for instance (such as the one above) - and exhorted us to respect and worship the totem. Today, as companies strive to become global brands - but at the same time maintain their identity - they spend millions of dollars on designing unique and easily recognised logos and other accessories and marketing them via different channels -including the “humble” t-shirt. This creates not only brand loyalty but also reinforces subliminally the corporate relationship in the minds of its employees. (There is also the incidental benefit that the wearer becomes a cost-free walking billboard for the company.) It also tells the employees that they have been accepted into the “clan” and that they belong (so long as they play by the rules).

When we first received them we - at least the less cynical of us - would have worn t-shirts with company logos with pride and joy as a way of advising the world of the great group we now belong to. But then all honeymoons come to an end. We may (or bound to?) get disgruntled with the crowd we work for and either learn to live with it or or move on to other adventures. The totem is then thrown off its pedestal. Along with the change in our work status, the corporate t-shirt too goes from riches to rags and gets relegated to being worn while doing the occasional backyard chore. What is more, that t-shirt may even eventually be “pensioned off” one day - perhaps a Freudian confirmation of our desire not to have even that trivial connection with that mob or corporate clan. (I have also in the cupboard a couple of company t-shirts which I may not have worn even once: does this too have a deeper meaning than I realise?)