Ok, does anyone know what this means? I tried googling about it and couldn’t figure out if it was refering to music or a clothing line of some sort. I attempted to read some of the pages that came up but they quickly devolved into message postings like 'U rawk dood!" and the like.
So I guess the question is, what is the hundreds and what does that have to do with being a crime?
Would it help if I said I’ve never heard that before? What context does it come from?
I knew my OP was missing something! I saw it on a sticker that was plastered onto a bus signpost. I’ve heard that those stickers have been plastered all over the place.
Isn’t “the hundreds” an insult contest, often (if not always) by black kids? So maybe the stickers are protesting prohibitions on such contests by school officials.
I’ve heard of “the dozens.”
“You wanna play the dozens?
Well, the dozens is a game…”
Ahem. And now. The hundreds.
Sorry. A bit oblique. I recall a reference in my very younger days to propaganda declaring that “Skating in not a crime.” Typically this phrase adorned skatepunk clothing. Given your location and the site I linked to I’d say this is just an edgy advertising campaign aimed at the punk/sk8er market.
“The Hundreds” is an aggregrate of hip-hop clothing lines, and “The Hundreds Is Not A Crime” is a marketing slogan.
How much you want to analyze the slogan is up to you.
You could say that it’s the “street culture” analogue of “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful.” It’s designed to invite the consumer to identify with a mythical class of people who are persecuted for being hipper than most people. It’s intended to tap into the zeitgeist of alienation and transmute it into a sort of badge of honour. It’s basically an “outsiders” club. Sure, people may have no respect for you and you may constantly experience rejection, but spending your money on this product allows you to work some transformative alchemy and declare that you’re an outcast because you’re better than them. This makes a $75 hoodie or a $30 salon product a bargain, because the price tag includes esteem-building of the feeling of membership in a constructed tribal elite.
Or you could say that it’s a vague and meaningless marker, like “Just Do It,” a group of words designed to have only the shallowest appeal, with no significant semiotic content at all.
Whatever floats your boat.
http://thehundreds.com/contents.html
It’s a clothing company, with a strong skate/punk/graf vibe - all v. underground and groovy
More info:
http://www.dorkmag.com/archives/2005/10/bobby_hundreds_1.html
That makes more sense now. It sounds like the whole FUBU thing all over again. “Come spend a bunch of money on our clothes because we get you!!”