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Relevant To Your Interests: Nerd Your Denim Jacket with Enamel Pins

I have recently gotten myself a denim jacket after much deliberation about whether or not I would look good in a denim jacket. Like we’re talking 20 years of deliberation. I worried I would look like a Charlie Brown character. And honestly? I kinda do. And I dig it. One of the great joys of a denim jacket is accessorizing a denim jacket, I’ve found. But what’s a queer nerd to do? How shall we signal the particular intersection of queerness and nerddom to the fullest possible extent? I’ve gotchu, friends. Here are the nerdiest ways to gay up your denim jacket and also the gayest ways to nerd up your denim jacket that I can find on the internet. And by that I mean, how about some nerdy enamel pins.

Tubbs enamel pin, $4. Swish and Flick pin, $9.13 (comes in other colors!). Self-Rescuing Princess pin, $10.54. Melted astronaut, $12.

Stronger Than You Believe pin, $10.54 (I think this pin should just say “Stronger than you,” but I am biased). BB-8 enamel pin, $11.24. I Believe In Science pin, $10. Frankenstein pin, $9.83.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also point out the fabulous offerings in our own store. Here’s the nerdiest among them.

The Dead Lesbian Society Pin Pack: Maya, Lexa and Tara, $25. Queerdo pin, $10. Indoorsy pin, $10. Introvert pin, $10.

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A.E. Osworth

A.E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit), is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (April 2021) and is available for pre-order now. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle (where they used to be the Geekery Editor), Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

A.E. has written 542 articles for us.

17 Comments

  1. My etsy is mostly enamel pins and patches so I looooooooove this post. I have the melted astronaut saved already haha.

  3. I signed up just so I can rec Kate Leth’s pins, particularly the San Junipero onehttps://topatoco.com/products/kod-san-stayghost-pins

    • the best is when someone recognises tubbs (or xerxes- he looks so regal!) as such and then the theme song gets stuck in my head all day

  6. Perfect timing – I bought my first denim jacket just two days ago and it hadn’t even occurred me to add pins into the mix!

  7. So, at work today, I showed people the she/her enamel pin that I purchased because the campus’s LGBTQ center has been handing out stickers. I think that pins are more sustainable because they can be worn multiple times, and while I work in the library, I’m probably going to be in the LGBTQ center at least once every other month for the staff book club if not more.

    I then developed a Millennial Theory on Things One Sticks into Clothes while waxing poetical to my boss about enamel pins. I will present this now:

    1. Buttons. Casual, T-shirt and jeans pins. Depending on where one works, not work appropriate.

    2. Enamel pins. Business casual or effortful casual. Easy to wear in a work environment because they are shiny and look polished.

    3. Brooches. Business formal to business casual, plus acceptable for weddings and funerals.

    I don’t know where those collar fasteners fit into this yet, but probably the same 2-3 level.

    Unrelated: All of the cat-creature pins I want on https://shop.ohplesiosaur.com/collections/enamel-pins are always sold out before I get there. ?

  9. Very relevant to my interests.
    I am somewhat known at work for having an enamel pin for every blazer I wear (and given my tailored femme-ish aesthetic that’s basically every day since I own too many blazers for my own good).

    These are great. And also putting it out there for people if you’re not a denim jacket person, there’s something amazing in having a queer and/or feminist pin on the lapel of a blazer since people don’t expect it :)

  11. I also debate getting a denim jacket. This article may well push me over the line. (Because I have many of those pins and desperately need a way to display them.)

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