I need all the ladies who wore Puma bags one year ago while attending college to raise their hands... Now if you raised your hand but at the moment your style consists of "edgy" pieces you're officially a follower. You probably just made a blog or a twitter account with some kind of gun or razor blade as your background. You now like "biker boots" and have a keri hilson type of hair cut or dye job. You probably love Rihanna also.
I'm blatantly hating right? Maybe. Let me explain why the new wave of "Rebels" bothers me. 80% of the people I see in "the scene" grew up in a house in either: A. New Jersey B.Queens or C.Long Island. And I'm not talking to those of you who grew up in a house but it was still the hood. I'm talking Suburban two car homes where mom cooked dinner every night. You probably went to all 4 years of high school with no problem and even got punished when you acted up. You wore Joyce Leslie and lived for sneaking your boyfriend/girlfriend in through your window. Mommy money was always readily available. Even if you had to argue a bit and til' this day your parents paid for the first month, last month and deposit on "your" new apartment in the city.
So why would I give a fuck? Beautiful for you right? Why am I mad that your parents loved you and you came from a good home? WHY?! Because:
If that is who you are and how you were brought up...you probably go to Sway on Mondays but don't drink or smoke. So why the fuck would you want to be "edgy?!" Why do you act like you've ran through these streets when you were 11 cutting your hands on barbwire? Why do you think it's cool to look "hardcore" when you're sweet as a button underneath? I don't care or would ever dislike you if you were being you but don't try to be me or my friends. I rather you wear your Uggs (even I have a pair) and Ambercrombie hoodies. Go Drive the X3 they gave you for graduation back home please.
Why go try to live in Brooklyn and suffer like we used to? Do you feel the need to wear bullet chains so you can look a bit tougher? Is it to identify yourself more with the struggle you believe those around you have experienced?
Is it because you went to fashion school and picked up on trends and decided: Hey I like this Street Wear/Flannel 90's Grunge look and Ima go with it? But if that wasn't you last month why the transformation? If you bought Britney Spears' album but all of a sudden I throw The Rolling Stone's "Hot Rocks" on and you say "ohhh I love them!" But cant name them for me... ummm????? Why can't you just be you? You probably come around me and my girls and don't know what to do but agree with what we're saying.
I roll with a bunch of Psychos, girls whose dads were once crack heads, whose parents beat them, who smoked waaay too early and took the train to school in 6th grade.
Why do you want to be us while we wish we had it like you? Maybe I shouldn't have concentrated on the fashion aspect of it so much, because to each their own. But it's more like when I see people portraying a lifestyle they aren't living or never lived. Why the gun tattoos if you never shot a gun? (I HAVE!) How could that be significant to you if you grew up on an island with a rural family? You think getting beat up makes you "edgier" right? You've "been through something" now.
Suck my dick. For real! Please do! I wish I could gag you with it and make you fear for your life to give you some kind of real life threatening experience.
In the end (because I know someone will have some side shit to say about me judging others), but in the end: Please just be real, with you and your peers. Don't act crazy if you're not. You want to tattoo your face? Chill... be cute. Danger from "For The Love of Ray-J" can do that because HELLO! Shorty cried when they said they were goin to her home town to meet family. Now why would she do that? Duh, ain't nothin pretty back there. I'm not a 'Danger' type of rugged... but shit, I don't want you to meet my parents either.
I've been through more in 21 years of living than what a person with even the slightest bit more opportunity could have in 42 years. And I DONT EVEN ACT like it. 9-5 Monday through Friday, I'm prim and proper dressed for success with the best grammar one could have. But the Yale graduate in the graphic design department "loves Slaughter House and thinks Asher Roth should join them." C'mon man, what the FUCK? Just be YOU! Even if its not cool, I'm not always cool either. Have your own personal style, let it reflect who you are inside, it should meld every part of what has made you, together.
People ask me all the time: "Aye, why you always so angry?" Or tell me "Aye you're too raw, you mad crazy." It's not an act though, when the time is necessary you will see I'm ACTUALLY a tough chick. No need to wear a Butcher Knife on my head or post "Edgy" clothes on my blog I could never afford unless I still had mommy helping.
You know how expensive it is to look 'Grunge' now? Lol. Kurt Cobain is rolling in his grave right now as 90's babies trample above it in plaid shirts.
You'll know where you fit in when you move to NYC from the south into a 1 and a half bedroom, walk up... in the LES for $2000 a month. You'll walk in and your roommate will snorting lines off the moldy toilet top while some guy that looks like a dealer sit on the couch with his hands in his pants. You'll ask yourself... "Is this what being a 'hipster' is about? I'm calling my mom in Michigan so she can wire me some money"
-Shouts to Erica my lovely, who always keeps her look fierce in her heels even though she works in a slightly hood area and is from "The South Side." She could wear a plastic bag to work if she wanted but always looks like if she's going somewhere special.
-Sam who works at Ambercrombie and ROCKS her SHIT! Ed Hardy hat and alll, and I don't hate in the least bit. That's her and she was running around outside @2am on a weekday when she was 9.
-Bee, who will wear OG Jordans to the most stuffy or trendy lounges but still be cute as hell.
-Kirsy, who refuses to ever over do it, and will be the baddest bitch in the room with some Converse All Stars on.
-Shiv who is always Lady Gaga fresh, loveeees color but will hip grind you out of the building.
-And even though we just met: Shar (and she's a designer), who always has an understated but very pulled together hippie chic look going.
(ALL OF THE ABOVE WILL KNOCK YOUR TEETH IN WITH THE QUICKNESS, but are ALWAYS the essence of what a lady should be. They also are so vast in their lifestyle habits it would be hard to really define them. We all know lines from Wu-tang to Kings of Leon to Keri Hilson.)
I'm going to post pictures as examples so you guys can start jackin soon.
Oh and me of course Circa EARLY 07':
If you think I got some nerve to judge others and shouldn't be talking... um we obviously aren't friends. So...
As I wrote on Twitter: STICK A FIST IN IT BECAUSE WE NEED A GAP!
-A
