Life Experiment #1
By Christopher Paul Snyder
November 14, 2024
ORIGIN
Inspired by Steve Jobs, famous for wearing the same black turtle neck every day. By Tom Scott, known basing his entire brand on the red shirt he wears in every video. By Mark Zuckerburg wearing the same shirts day, after day, after day.
HYPOTHESIS
I expected this experiment to make getting dressed quicker, and reduce the amount of brain power dedicated to thinking about what I have to wear. I hoped it would make my life more convenient and easier.
RESULTS
It made folding laundry easier. The yellow shirts are quite distinct from any other kind of clothing I have which mostly consist of dark grays, blacks and blues. As a self-identified lazy person, I often wait on doing laundry until I run out of underwear and end up wearing the same pair enough days to feel I should probably do something about it (Don’t worry, it’s never been more then 3). Once it’s done in the washer, on more occasions than I would like to admit, I forgot the clothes in there and it may be several hours before I get around to putting them in the dryer. Once there dry (mostly), there has been many an occasion of the clothes ending up in my laundry basket for several days until I get around to folding them. This often leaves the clothes somewhat wrinkled, and ends up with me throwing dirty clothes on the floor until I decide to empty the dirty laundry basket and fold the clean clothes inside.
However; when I do get around to folding them, every time I will pull the yellow shirts out and fold all of them before anything else. Being bright yellow, their extremely distinct and easy for me to separate. Shirts in general are large and simple for me to fold, and since they’re all identical, it’s satisfying to see the small pile of yellow pile up. I would love to replicate this with socks, underwear, jeans, and other forms of clothing.
It Made Strangers Recognize Me In Public. As someone who has had trouble giving firm handshakes, has never been quite sure when to offer a hug, and who talks to myself in public, I’ve always been a bit socially awkward. I enjoy going to the library, using public computer labs, attending clubs and events in my community. I often see people I know when out in public but in many cases am too timid to say hi even though I usually want to.
At my local library, I began going to a monthly D&D group. Our DM leading the party was one of the head librarians. After getting to know each other at D&D I would often see him at the library but was too scared to approach him. When I walked in with my yellow shirt on, there was no mistaking me for anyone else and he was much more likely to go out of his way to say hi to me.
The same thing happened to me at the gym.
