I wonder whether, as this pandemic goes on, masks will become a normal part of social attire. Rather than being seen as a harbinger of something bad, they will just be part of going out of the house.
I can think of a rough analogy with shoes. You can’t really leave your house these days with bare feet. Unlike the old days, you would now encounter sidewalks and paved roads, which are very unfriendly to the human foot.
But we don’t think of shoes as something bad. In fact, we have turned them into objects of fashion and desire. Shoes have been integrated into our social and cultural discourse on many levels.
I wonder whether that will happen with masks.
And continuing the analogy with (some kinds of) shoes, will people want to wear them if they are stylish enough, even when they are quite uncomfortable?
Given how very uncomfortable some very stylish shoes can be, I would say yes. 🙂