Dear Academy of Art Students,

Art school is so cool, it almost hurts. That's why you have to make sure that every time you leave the house you have enough hip clothes on to look totally radical, but not completely like a hipster. You've got to rock slang that was trendy in the 1980s (since that's the retro cycle for the early 2000s,) but make sure that you use it ironically, even though you're not entirely sure what irony actually is. Your leggings have to dramatically clash with your skirt, because if you used complimentary colors, all the other art students would know you were referring to your color wheel again. Most importantly, your girl jeans have got to be nice and tight, perhaps even brightly colored.


When you're 19 and living in an art school dorm and too cool for life, life is hard. I mean, you really ought to be able to hang out in dive bars so you can look as angsty as you feel. Too bad none of the bars around your neighborhood of clustered dorms will let you in. To pass the time you throw eggs out of your dorm window and chain smoke on your front stoop, wishing that the world understood how hard your life is living in a $1500 a month shared room with aesthetically pleasing black buses shuttling you all over the city each day and mom and dad picking up the tab for it all. You try to get neighbors to spot you for Pabst because you heard it was the beer of angst ridden punk rock kids once upon a time.

In the morning, when folks in your neighborhood are trying to walk downtown to go to work, you are outside with 30 of your dorm mates, hanging around waiting for the bus. Remember when you were younger and your teachers made you line up before school and you thought to yourself, "This is so lame. I am not a sheep! Why's Mrs. So-and-so gotta be The Man all the time." And you were right. Lining up is like, hella oppressive. You're your own person! You stand where you want! Now that you're all grown up and your parents have sent you off to a prestigious university in a city known for being full of cynical, chain-smoking artists, you don't have to bow down to The Man and get in a line before class. Who cares that the people in your neighborhood have to get to work so they can pay their rent that is inflated because your school is taking over the neighborhood and driving up rents? Not you, that's who! Oh hey, there goes a dude you threw an egg at last night walking to a miserable construction job so he can feed his family. Did I just see you pull that hoodie up to hide your face better? Oh right, that was really because you're so cool.

Don't think I don't understand you, little art students. I do. I've been cynical and angsty my whole life. My wardrobe is full of black and skinny jeans and even some neon things from H&M! I've got your number. And I, for one, think it's great the you've decided to be so edgy that you don't give a flying french connection UK about your neighbors. Sure, I am one of them, but if living on a street covered in broken eggs and vomit from when you drink too much on your stoop that I can't freely walk down while class is in session is the price I have to pay for your self expression, I am so down with that. If my rent goes up and up and my landlord makes my life miserable because of rent control so that you can go to a school that buys up independent hotels and turns them into overpriced dorms that you'll move out of in a year, moving into a 300 square foot studio at the same price, effectively forcing me out of my neighborhood, well that is just swell. Anything I can do to help the younger generation. Really.

So keep on keepin' on, kids. Don't worry about being considerate neighbors while you support the largest landowner in San Francisco's drive to take over the whole city and amass millions and millions of dollars in the process. You won't be here in 3 years anyway, you'll be Emeryville working at Pixar or in Paris designing haute couture or something and really making something of yourself. Then you'll get to say that San Francisco is oh-so overrated, or that it's nowhere near as chic as where you've landed. You won't care that single moms like me were forced to move to Livermore or Fairfield, or that we had to pull our kids away from your messes on the sidewalk for 4 years. I mean, who even remembers their college days anyway?

You know what's cute? Even if any of you were reading this, I'm not sure you'd get the sarcasm. I'd pat you on the head and buy you a PBR if I could, kiddos.

Yours in totally mega radical ironic slang and skinny jeans forever (or at least until a new trend comes along),
Lauren