Button Pins are awesome
Hello internet denizens, I'm here to talk to you about button pins. What the hell are they anyway? Button pins, custom pinback buttons, pinback buttons, wacky buttons, pins, actually all refer to the same thing. I call it a button pin. This is what it looks like:
Who Invented Button Pins?
These button pins have been around for hundreds of years now. But did you ever wonder where they got their start? First people started making button pins with illustrations of popular cartoons. Afterwards button pins were picked up by public relations experts as well as political campaigners and used to spread a message. In the same way that branded clothes or cars advertise the company that makes them, button pins are part of a viral information network. It allows people to advertise a message that is important to them without writing on their clothes.
It also allows people to participate in the conversation without taking too much risk. Button pins are inexpensive and can be worn or put away with ease. In the only option to show support for a cause was to buy a t-shirt, or even more extreme, get a tattoo: only the diehard supports of that cause would be willing to do so. Button pins addresses that problem by offering a low risk solution to showing support. Button pins can be given away at events so supporters have practically no risk at all.
Button Pins In Modern Culture
Not only are button pins used to show support for a cause, they are also an element of fashion. Some button pins walk the line between supporting a cause and being an element of fashion, such as rock n roll band button pins, or movie button pins. Other button pins are purely about fashion, like button pins with cutesy illustrations of funny sayings.
When you look at the ecology of the button pins market you see a trend of many different social groups patronizing as many different button pins sub-genre. The respectable group, or what I call the I'm-uptight-and-not-going-to-give-you-a-leg-to-stand-on group, is mostly interested in buttons that support a noble cause or shows political affiliation. While a younger oppositional group, what i call the edgy-teenagers, wouldn't be caught dead wearing a political button pin unless they were doing it purely out of irony. Which wouldn't really be irony, it would be satire, it also wouldn't be the point.
These are only two very different social groups that compose the button pins ecological system. There are obviously many more.