My Blogging History, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate Hipsters

I don't like using the word hate, especially to describe my own feelings. Certainly hate is a good mindset to avoid, but the most hateful experience I ever had came from the likes of a hipster. Only, the word "hipster" had not yet been popularized in my part of the country.

I was in ninth grade, or maybe tenth grade, and I was keeping a personal livejournal very different from this blog. I basically would share things about my day with my friends, and my blog was public because plenty of my friends didn't have livejournal, and I didn't want to force them to create accounts in order to follow my life. I also allowed anonymous comments for the sake of my friends.

At that time, I was kind of getting into new music, and when I started dating my high school boyfriend Jon, I got into a lot more music. Was I into really cool music in ninth grade? You bet your sweet bippy! My first concert was The Strokes in 2003. During freshman year, I attended a few more concerts and frequently blogged about them because they were the best time of my young life. Let me make this quite clear: I was not cool in high school. (I know, the fact that I kept a livejournal made you think that I was probably the coolest kid on the block, but alas it was not so.) I knew there was a thing called cool, and I kinda tried to do it, but I was not really talented in obtaining that, probably due to the trying thing. This blog was the most public forum in which I showed my insecurities, and it was by no means an attempt to impress anyone.

And then somebody began posting anonymously on my blog, and she was mean. To this day, I don't know who she was, but she was somebody from my junior high who had a big problem with me. I will never know why. She took issue with the fact that I seemingly "changed" when I got into high school and I was attempting to be "punk." (People didn't really use the term "hipster" or "indie" back then, but I think that would be a more fitting term for it.)

Here's a charming example of her overall bitchiness from July 10, 2004:

omg, you play guitar? to fit your new found image, you try too hard, but its funny. I bet you can even play a chord now! Please tell us when you learn to play a three chord song! omg maybe you will even become the next sheryl crowe!

And this gem about how people like me ruined Chuck Taylors:

I can't believe you think you are cool wearing pink converse...pink converse ruined Chuck Taylors are we know them, people like you and avril lavigne, goodcharlotte etc. ruined punk. YOU ARE A POSER. JUST FACE THE MUSIC (pop punk obviously) you don't know what the fuck you are doing, and if you went to a used concert or to warped tour you would be killed, and made fun of. You belong in theatre and ballet, don't rain on my parade and STOP RUINING EVERYTHING I LOVE YOU FUCKING POSER>aaaaaaah you anger me like no other.
I'm lizzie cross, i think i am punk, even though i only pretend in order to be popular, and i follow the trends. I pretend to be a punk because i want attention from my ex-boyfriend, altough he is a poser too! OMG JUST FUCK OFF AND GO BACK TO JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE,
you will never know the true meaning of converse, and obviously you are superficial if you want people to think your "converse" are dirty( i say this in quotation because pink converse aren't considered real, they are poser jessica simpson shit shoes)

(sic) for all of that, of course.

The funniest thing though, I was pathetic. I would openly admit to feeling pathetic on this blog, and this girl felt the need to tear me down more. I had much bigger fish to fry back then, and while it really bugged me that somebody would dislike me so much as to do that, there were plenty of things that were bringing me down more. I mean, let's be honest, high school is tough. Classes were harder than I could have imagined, and other personal shit was happening to me all at once. Today when I read my private diaries from then, I see that I was in such a dark place, I am barely recognizable.

Although my cyber bully was just being a mean girl and probably grew out of that phase in her life, and perhaps barely remembers it, my insecurities have been forever affected by those silly comments. Did she mean it? Was she just jealous? Was she dealing with her own shit? All of that is irrelevant since to this day my worldviews, and the way I view myself, are affected by it.

Her implication that my choice to change my image was somehow appropriating an underground "punk" culture for my own was perplexing. Apparently in that world, you have to be born punk. If you decide to get into new music when you are as old as 15, you are clearly being a poser.

Nowadays, I still have a bit of a complex that hipsters hate me because of this girl. The truth is, hipsters probably do not spend the energy hating me. They probably don't really even notice me, but I've always been wary of counter-culture type people, like hipsters, because of this young girl's criticisms years ago. In the back of my mind, a little bit of me assumes they have the same mindset as my anonymous commenter, that they think everybody should be raised indie or else they have no right listening to their special secret music.

And then there's the fact that every time I change my look, I fear that people will think I'm appropriating their special part of white privileged society, that I'm trying too hard to be something I'm not. Of course, this doesn't get to me as much as it used to, but it's still there, in the back of my mind, reminding me that when I change my aesthetic, I might be "posing." Fortunately, I have come to terms with and even romanticized the fact that as humans we are constantly changing. Two years ago was when I really started getting into cosmetics, and look at me now, it is one of my favorite pastimes. I didn't self-identify as a feminist until college, and the more I have gotten into feminism, the happier it has made me (I hope to blog about that soon.) I love changing, being a different person every day, because for me the only way to be true to myself is to allow myself to change.

These are the little things that stick with you. There's nothing we can do to keep kids from bullying each other, but the ages between 10 and 16 is such a vulnerable time for development. Although I know the words of a young girl shouldn't have this much of an effect on who I am, my emotional memory will not soon go away.

It makes me wonder if there's anything mean I ever did to somebody that affected her forever. I hope not, and I know I never did something on this scale, but I wouldn't be surprised if everybody has made an offhanded bitchy comment that really stuck. If there's anybody out there like that, I apologize.

In case you're wondering, there is a small part of me that wishes I knew who it was. I honestly truly believe that she is not a horrible person. Almost everyone who is bitchy like that in early high school grows out of it by the time they graduate and grows into a nice, normal member of society.

If you're feeling brave, comment and share an experience from high school or earlier that has forever affected your self-esteem. Or you could leave a comment about a friend of yours. I would love to hear other similar experiences.