Written while having bad skin.

I don’t want to be dramatic, is something I say to myself and others before I go off. I won’t even say it now, because I want to remain cool and calm and collected, and foreshadowing a blog post with “I don’t want to be dramatic” just mentally gives me the go-ahead to rant. And I’m above that, frankly.

I’m about to head back to school. I have officially turned 21 (#twentyfun). I’m living life large, but also small because I’m so thin, and also medium because I can speak with the dead. But as I’m going back, I have to start reacquainting myself with my peers and my piers (Boston is a river city), and that means reacquainting myself with Fakesters (Fake Hipsters, but I can’t think of a wittier amalgam, so fucking sue me. Also like you even fucking know what an amalgam is).

To the casual basique onlooker, I might be generally confused (slightly) for a hipster. I’m gay (very against the mainstream), I wear a lot of sweaters, I make strong references, and I’m an English major (hipster boner city because if I’ve listened to one New Balance-wearing wannabe discussing 1800s English poets, I’ve listened to a thousand). However, I’m also deeply invested in the welfare of the Kardashian-Jenners, I don’t own an antique printing press, and my iPod nano has since lost all charge because I retired it in 2009 like the humanitarian I am.

However, when you dance the dirty tango with Hipsterdom, that means that you come into contact with A) real hipsters (which I can’t even) and B) Fakesters (which are like real hipsters but infinitely more insufferable). Look, I get it. Everyone gets caught up in trends. The ‘90s are back, hunny, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. HOWFUCKINGEVER, I can’t handle it when people take things a little too far.

I’ve been watching Friends recently and besides the very problematic lack of queer or black people, it’s been cute. It’s also been hauntingly familiar because everything that all the characters wear is something that I’ve seen on a classmate. Crop tops, oversized flannels, a simple boot. We’re jonesing for the ‘90s bad. Which is cool. Which is fine. But there are some things that cross the fucking line.

I was on Snapchat and I was scrolling through people’s Stories—muted—when I came across the Snapchat of a not friend-friend (like, we’re “friends” but I wouldn’t eat in front of her) and she has Snapchatted her listening to a circa-2007 iPod classic. So let’s break down this situation. You think it’s fucking hipster and alternative to listen to an iPod classic (no h8, don’t send me your letters, iPod classic stans) and document on a modern social media app with YOUR FUCKING IPHONE 6S. If you’re going to commit and make me seem like an asshole millennial, then you don’t get to use a goddamn iPhone. Go back to a corded housephone, you monster. And I say this with a lot of love and also if the person who did this ever finds this blog, I just want you to know that I don’t hate you, please don’t spit at me.

I can handle the Tumblr freaks and the mirror selfies and the acid-washed mom jeans. I can handle them because I am them. But I can’t handle blatant and (frankly) dangerous behavior. You’re not edgy. There’s a reason why we don’t use the iPod classic anymore. And that reason is because we have fucking iPhones, which you know, you fakester.

This might seem harsh, but let me reason with you. I deal with fakesters a lot: I go to an urban school in a fairly liberal city. And a lot of me being a mainstream, trendy motherfucker led me to feeling like an idiot. I felt like I was stupid in the face of these “edgy” people, like I was a phony or a total basic for liking the things I like. The people who are so stuffed to the gills with ennui that they’re choking on irony. I’ve learned to cope and ferret out my own internal reasons for feeling inferior.

But I can’t deal with fakery. I can’t handle peers who go thrift-shopping with their parents’ credit cards, who have political opinions but aren’t registered to vote, who have answers to questions they don’t understand. I can handle the slight narcissism that comes with being a hipster and going anti-trend. I even respect it sometimes. But I can’t handle full-on bullshit. You’re not indie. You’re not edgy. You can be you and do your thing and wear chokers and I can do my thing and read Daily Mail, but let’s not pretend that we’re any different. At the end of the day, we’re both trendy millennial fuckers. And that’s okay. Because that’s the way it should be.