Too Old for Message Tees?

The other day a friend and I were discussing message tees and how she has requested that her husband move on to more suitable age appropriate attire since he is in his thirties. This sparked a whole debate on the appropriateness of message and character tees in general.

I fondly remember the days when I was in high school and I could stroll into Hot Topic and purchase a fun retro character tee (in a junior fit small, no less). Over the years, I've allocated all message and character tees to either gym wear or around the house/ quick grocery run lounge wear, and now I find myself choosing plain boring workout dry fit tops for my workouts. It isn't that I don't find message tees funny. In fact, I find myself giggling at shirts on www.80stees.com and www.welovefine.com all the time, but I just can't bring myself to make a purchase. I think that ship may have sailed.

 When we first got married, my husband bought a message tee that said "Cougar Bait" and it had a graphic image of a cougar printed on the front. We thought it was hilarious...  until we woke up one day and realized that he was now at a respectable age and no one would blink an eye if he ran off with a woman in her 40s. That shirt quickly found its way into the Goodwill pile.

Out of curiosity, I did a tee search on google images of (what else) My Little Pony tees to see if I could find a few to stash in my closet for the occasional collector outing or pony meet and I managed to find a few that I might considering wearing. First off, all FIM tees were pretty much automatically crossed off the list of contenders. Don't get me wrong, I love the FIM show, artwork and characters, but since it has become so mainstream, I find myself looking at shirts sporting Pinkie Pie the same way I look at those tacky decals people paste on their truck windows of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs peeing on a Ford or Chevy logo.

Then, I decided to look at retro pony designs and was a little saddened to only find a handful of options. Plus, most for these had some message emblazoned across the image like, "Daddy Buy Me a Pony" or "Princess" that would only be suitable if I was 12. After a little digging, I came up with the following purchasing options:

I could possibly see myself wearing this under my powder blue fleece zip up, but it is doubtful I'd wear it by itself. It is kind of intensely girly.

 I can see myself wearing this to a pony outing, or the gym with ridiculously bright neon shorts.

This is probably, my least favorite of the  bunch (because of the word "love" written on it), but I could possibly imagine myself wearing this paired with black yoga pants around the neighborhood.

 I think this one is really funny and a little more subtle than the other options (If there is anything subtle about having My Little Ponies printed across your chest.)

 I really like this one even though it resembles a shirt I had when I was 5. I might wear this around the house or to a pony meet or something.

Also, www.Zazzle.com has some Hasbro submitted retro designs that are a bit more simplistic. They have a few fan favorites including Glory, Gusty, Sundance, and a few others. I imagine I could pair these with jeans and wear one to a pony event.

What do you think about wearing message and character tees, specifically My Little Pony tees in everyday life? Do you think there is an age where you should resign yourself to being message tee free or are you the type of person who will still be sporting Rainbow Dash, "20% Cooler" proudly at  age 79?