Every few years, without even realizing it, I always end up shifting my personal appearance and stylistic choices towards a new social category. Years ago, I started to purge all color from my wardrobe and filled the empty spaces with black, spiky/chained/otherwise embellished embellished Hot Topic shit. I rebounded from that phase by wearing nothing but neon colors, also all from Hot Topic. Soon after, I began to dim my closet's contents to pastels and muted colors, because thats what the nice, plain girls wear.
And so the cycle continued: I'd start to dress a certain way without realizing it, then I would realize it and take the trend-following up a notch, then I'd get bored and have an awkward transitional period of wearing odd combinations, then I'd fall into a new trend without even realizing it.
What's ironic is that these days I dress like a hipster. Clarification-- I dress like an east coast hipster, who wears new, original, vintage clothing; not a "hipster" like all the blogs belonging to super sluts on Tumblr. The Tumblr-promoted west-coast "hipster" is bullshit; they're actually just self-promoting, attention-hungry girls in high-waisted denim shorts, vans sneakers, and short crop tops with long hair and deep tans flipping off the camera or frolicking through fields/beaches/Wal-Marts. It's like they're wearing a uniform, it goes against the core value of hipsterdom: Don't dress or act like the crowd, dress and act better and more originally. Why strive to meet the curve when you should strive to be ahead of it?
True, east-coast hipsterdom is all about wearing shit that's radically new and different compared to the majority of what the rest of everyone are wearing. The irony is in the fact that hipsterdom is all about not following trends when it, in itself, is a trend which is being avidly followed. It's quite paradoxical.
Anyway, I'm noticing more and more that I'd been dressing in weird, avant-garde, overly daring outfits lately. This paired with the fact that I only smoke American Spirits and adore Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer all culminates in the fact that I have found my trend for right now: I am a hipster.
However, I refuse to be musically pretentious, overtly aloof, nor ride a Fixie (the official indie bicycle of the hipster community). I also refuse to get a tan so that I may fit into the fake Tumblr "hipster" community. But I will stay true to hipsterdom and dress like a nut, smoke only Spirits (even though they're fucking expensive! $7 a pack, you'd think they had gold dust in them)
In accordance with the cycle, now that I've realized the social category that I fall into, I can nw embrace it to its fullest extent until hipsterdom becomes boring for me.
Hahaha.
How was your day?
Julia
I had a good day :)
ReplyDeleteAs far as styles, I went through the Hot Topic dark phase, and skipped the neon phase.
Right now my closet has a lot of dark blues, blacks, and browns--- all unintentional. My friends call me a "hipster" but honestly I just like wearing comfy sweaters and dressing like an old man.
My day was dull but decent, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteHipster is one of the more amusing social categories to dress for because you can wear about anything and claim that it's ironic. I have a few friends that are pretty hipster and they are so much fun to going shopping with.
Tumblr is just a world of its own. There are the categories 'real life' and 'Tumblr.'
My day was great xD
ReplyDeleteDo you have people that you've known throughout all the phases? How do they react? lol
I kinda went through a lot of phases and when I think back, I wonder just how everyone is just like heyyyy there she goes again. :p
Oh goodness, this "hipster" clothes thing is a trait of mine as well. I don't feel like I'm a "hipster" per se, but I just dress differently than most of my friends and I've been categorized as hipster before. (But yeah. I just wear clothes I like, bro.)
ReplyDeleteThe Tumblr hipsters aren't real hipsters. They are crop-top-wearing conformists who add retro effects to self-taken pictures of their torsos. I agree with you completely.
My day was tiring but productive. Thanks for asking :)
ReplyDeleteRegarding fashion, I guess being a guy living in the UK, I am lost when it comes to 'hipsters' and 'super sluts' and the like. Fashion in my town basically involves deciding between jeans or chinos, and then choosing between a stripey t-shirt or a Lyle & Scott Polo shirt. It's all very samey.
But $7 for a pack of cigarettes? That's what dreams are made of. You're looking at the equivalent of around $10 for a pack over here, and that's just for the cheap dirty ones :/
Hope you're well! x
My day went better than most Wednesdays, amazingly.
ReplyDeleteI've gone through the same phases as you, mainly throughout junior high, with the darks, then the neons, then kind of pastel, muted colours. I just assumed that a lot of people have been doing such, because I usually buy what's available. Pastels and muted colours seem to be everywhere right now.
I've been called a hipster a couple times before, and while I feel that in a sense of forced nonconformism and elitism, I fit it better a couple years ago, but fashion-wise, I'd fit it more now (again, thank you muted colours). Hipsters don't seem to wear a lot of neons, but I don't know. Most of my knowledge comes via tumblr. And I like some of the photos, but others don't have anything particularly special about 'em at all.
I'd probably be put as a weeaboo more than anything, thanks to the bunny ears. A super-slutty looking weeaboo hipster thingiemajigyaknowwhatIdon'tevenknow. I mutated out of thirty different "cliques" or something.
Holy crap where did those massive spaces come from. O_O
ReplyDelete