Thrift and Poserism
a philosophical inquiry
Like Christ himself I was tempted in the desert; alone in a Ross Dress for Less, the dark lord accosted me. Not with the promise of power, nor of status, nor even of wealth. Well, not exactly of wealth. Quite the opposite, really.
Satan beset me with 70% off.
I had walked into the wasteland in search of a running quarterzip. My beloved Team Blitz QZ had, alas, been misplaced in a cross-town move some eighteen months prior and I was only now admitting to myself that it was lost, or at least would only return to me on a timeline all its own. I was here specifically for a quarterzip, specifically one to run in. And even more specifically, I was here for a deal.
After warming up with a once-over of the shoe section (plenty of deep-discount Dragonflies, Zoomflies, and KC Chiefs-branded Peg 41s, if you’re curious), I set to work on the “Active Outerwear” aisle. And there it was: My personal trolley problem.
A 2025 Chicago Marathon Finisher Nike Running quarterzip. Brand new, tags and all. Retail price, $80. Ross price, God help me, $25.
Reader, I did not run the 2025 Chicago Marathon. I didn’t start it, let alone finish it! I have never run any marathon, nor covered any more than exactly half that distance, and even then only on a handful of occasions, always in an unofficial context—certainly nothing with merch! And, as if that weren’t enough, I’ve never even been to the city of Chicago. But despite all this, dear reader, the fact remains: I love a deal.
Of course I love a good deal! I’m in a Ross Dress for Less! Why would I even be here if not for deals? For the ambiance?? Legally speaking, this is basically entrapment. Philosophically speaking it isn’t nearly so cut and dry. Or at least it didn’t seem so then. Even now I find myself conflicted.
How a 2025 Chicago Marathon Finisher swag item wound up in a Ross in RICHMOND, VIRGINIA is beside the point. God ain’t the only one to work in mysterious ways. We must accept the facts as they are. There is no sense in asking why; down such paths lie pains only greater. Let us face the task at hand.
The question: CAN I WEAR FINISHER SWAG FOR A RECENT, HIGH-PROFILE RACE I DEFINITELY DIDN’T RUN?
The caveat: WHAT IF IT WAS A REALLY GOOD DEAL?
Obviously I “can.” Nobody was there to stop me. No matter how badly this broke, the cops wouldn’t be after me. This isn’t a legal question but an ethical one. Does the quality of the deal discount (harharhar) the social deviance it engenders? Or, as I phrased it in a frantic text to my buddy-and-actual-marathoner Ryan, can thrift negate poserism?
Last year, writer Rayne Fisher-Quann popularized the term “poser ethics.” I’ve only read her essay’s introduction (the rest is paywalled and I am, as established, cheap). Nonetheless, I think “poser ethics” is exactly the field of our interest.
The sin at hand is one of cringe, a rule unwritten yet somehow undeniable. It’s corny to wear buy finisher swag for the 2025 Chicago Marathon if you didn’t finish the Chicago Marathon. I don’t know why it is, but it is and we both know it. It can’t really be articulated. It’s just poser behavior.
The strangest part? It isn’t inherently corny to wear finisher merch for a race you didn’t run. If, say, aforementioned Ryan had run Chicago in ‘25, come home with a quarterzip, and then given it to me, I would wear it proudly. No issue there.
Stranger still, if it were a less-known race, or even the same race but distant enough in history, I think that too would change things. I’d have far fewer reservations about, say, a Des Moines Marathon shirt, and I’d gladly wear a 1985 Chicago Marathon Finisher hat. The former, not being a World Marathon Major, doesn’t carry the same social cache; it’s not “posing” if nobody really cares. Similarly, nobody who sees my 26-year-old face beneath the brim of a Chicago ‘85 hat would think I’d participated; it’s not “posing” if nobody’s fooled.
Yet are the ethics in question those only of posing? We find ourselves today in a new running boom, one driven or at least adopted by the hyperconsumeristic online ecosystem of short form influence and the algorithmically-optimized get-fit-quick schemes of our present age, the genuine ethical dilemmas posed by which include not only those of so-called “posing” but of overseas labor exploitation and environmental apathy and an economy built on downright Caligulan excesses of disposable goods and designed obsolescence (all of which Ross attests to by its very existence), such that even running—in theory perhaps the purest sport there is, a pursuit so proletarian in essence that the term “blue collar” is both its highest praise and its greatest cliche—has been tainted, this most basic of athletic endeavors (and certainly the most mystically-inclined) has become before my eyes an influencer-infested pit of vipers, snake oil salesfolk in $70 sunglasses selling $300 shoes and luxury carbohydrate goo and, heaven help us all, AI-generated training plans to the shuffling masses among whom I count myself, to a rapidly-growing audience of relative newcomers who never knew a world without supershoes, without “Zone 2,” slowpokes much like myself, hypocrite that I am, I who owns carbon shoes and even tracksmith shorts but no, listen, you don’t understand, they’re actually really good shorts and I got them, listen!, I got them on sale, on a helluva discount, like 30 bucks each, and that’s different, that’s totally different, I’m actually doing something totally different, I’m being responsible, it’s good to be thrifty and necessary to be cheap, subversive, even, inthiseconomy? and ethical, and “rise honest Muse!” writes Pope, in Moral Essays, “and sing the Man of Ross,” and that’s me isn’t it? because I’m the man of Ross, clearly, and he’s the good guy (I think), and Alexander Pope would know about morals, his name is Pope forcryinoutloud, and anyway if I don’t buy it it’ll probably just get thrown away or probably even bought by someone else who didn’t run the 2025 Chicago Marathon and might not even have my selfawareness my shame it might not even bother them they’re being a poser meanwhile I’m atoning to anyone who’ll listen every time I wear the damn thing maybe it’s my duty to buy it my obligation maybe I’m saving some other poor soul from the fire and brimstone not to mention the Maurtenfueled glares of other “serious” runners Who does this guy think he is? Connor Mantz? maybe I need to do this maybe God is testing me maybe not God but—
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I was pulled from the brink by TLC’s “Waterfalls”. The speakers were tucked somewhere out of sight; one of the cashiers was singing along. I took a breath, a deep one. Another. I checked the tag again and realized the object of my unraveling was a size XL. Too big, might chafe on a run. I put it back and I fled the premises and I lived to tell the tale. Get thee behind me, Nike!
But the question still haunts me. Had it been my size, would I......?
No. Not again. Some questions are better left unanswered, some stones better left unturned. I can’t do this again. I have stared into the discounts, reader, and the discounts stared right back.
I only disagree with you in that I wouldn’t wear the 2025 merch if a friend gave it to me either. But vintage merch? That shit slaps