Trashy Realness

While quarantined I didn't see many "Real" people. 

I'd walk around my hometown--a quaint, quiet suburb--and see people with nice smiles and nice haircuts, dressed to impress as they were out-and-about (or as out-and-about as possible, given the circumstances), walking their dogs and watering their lawns. I'd see contestants on reruns of Jeopardy, some YouTubers with "jobs" unaffected by the P A N D E M I C, multi-millionaire celebrities on TV pretending that "we are all in this together."

All of these people were "real" insofar as they existed in space and time, but there was something fraudulent lurking beneath this alleged calm and content perfection. P A N D E M I C aside, there was a hidden brokenness that the simulation of their appearance always concealed. 

Always and everywhere people are broken despite their immaculate looks, lawns or fortunes. And as natural as nature itself, so is an individual's tendency to conceal their inherent brokenness. That being said, the falsity of stereotypical suburban appearances was generally not my type to befriend, even if to discover the truth of someone's brokenness for curiosity sake.  

My true remaining friends were indeed broken, and as I knew the intimate secrets of their lives I knew what caused their brokenness, which in turn made them relatable. Like my suburban neighbors, they also did their best to cover up their brokenness. Their 'best' was of a makeshift preference, and I found myself leaning more towards the personality that their appearance belied. My friends were Real. 

But a person's true "Realness" is dependent upon their willingness to admit to God the ways in which they are broken and the methods they are employing--through Him--to reach completion. In the way that everyone is striving for completion, everyone--regardless of their appearance--is broken.

Possibly it was this superficial suburban mask that lead me towards the "Real" environment of the gritty inner city all those years ago. A place I once deemed to contain the "Realness" that I thought would teach me the lessons of life that were not teachable in a suburbia full of simulacra. For me, realness was defined by strife and poverty and only attainable by living among those afflicted. To become real, I needed to suffer--but ultimately overcome by birthright--self inflicted strife and poverty. I resented my good fortune and needed to humble myself of it. 

This resulted in my downward spiral into Trashiness that lasted for several years.

After just having spent time among people that did their best to look decent, I remembered what it was like to be decent, and I returned to the inner city following suburban P A N D E M I C living bestowed with a hyper awareness for the various types of Trashiness that exists in space and time. Without friends or a job there was nothing to do in the city but be a flaneur while binging on snacks, and I could not help but use my eyes to observe the Trashy trends of modern humanity. 

"Trashiness" is as old as love and war, but the term--coined within my lifetime--has also gone from scorn to vogue within my lifetime, partially thanks to the liberalizing fashion trends of millennial hipsterdom. In the recent past Trashiness may have been an economic and sometimes psychological question, but now it is an anthropological question. There are two observable types of Trash: "Real" Trash and Vogue Trash.

Some of those born into poverty wear their poverty on their sleeves, or lack thereof. Because I do not befriend a majority of those that I stare at, I can only observe and judge (never condemn) based on their appearance. A person's appearance is the first thing--and often the last thing--that people notice about one another while passing them by. As a wanderer, this lead me to the revelation of what makes a person look Trashy despite economic status: tattoos, obesity, excessive piercings, excessive jewelry, loose clothing, untrimmed facial hair, open wounds, energy drinks, flip slops with socks, exposed midriffs, 'wife beaters,' corn rows, dreadlocks etc. How Trashy a person lives is a speculation based upon their appearance. That is not to say that appearances without the above characteristics do not live Trashy; the stereotypical 'frat bro' might dress like a golfer but live like as an alcoholic in his own filth.

You may read my incomplete list and think that I am an impeccable and insufferable snob. Possibly. (Hopefully.) But I have credentials that add weight to my opinion, having once been Trashy myself. 

Back when I was a hipster, I dressed Fashionably Trashy: I wore tight jeans with stains on them, big black boots, colorful children's jackets and bright pink girl's sweaters that I found in my hipster neighbor's garbage. I had horn rimmed glasses to role-play as a sloppy scholar. I dreamed of getting a tattoo on my chest and considered buying a grill, like various rappers I respected. 

I also lived like Trash: I drank frequently and heavily. I retarded myself from finding upwardly mobile employment, preferring to work dead-end, minimum wage jobs. I was lazy. I was promiscuous. I was not contributing to society in a meaningful way but instead chose to live life at the bare minimum, actively trying to destroy the good fortune I had been blessed with in a naive effort to become "Real."

Therefore, with perfect clarity I can now observe that standards of beauty have only fashionably fallen to below the poverty line; both elegance and beauty are not in the eye of the beholder. For instance, stains can never be elegant. Stains and tears reflect sloppiness and poverty, the historical opposite of elegance. I don't have to know anything about fashion trends to understand true beauty. Beauty is more than skin deep, and elegance is how a person conducts themselves. Beauty does not change with time and true elegance barely changes with time. 

Therefore, tattoos are the antithesis of elegance and will always be Trashy. Hipsters are temporarily capable of making them fashionable, but fashion is flaky. Hipsters are incapable of living forever and redefining the timelessness of elegance.

But, in our age of abundance, we have, for irony's sake, entered into an abyss of elegance. 

For example, trendsetters like Cardi B and Post Malone are rich and trashy. Each came from impoverishment and rose to fame and fortune with their musical talent. However, neither aspired to elegance or class, but instead stayed "true to their roots" aka "Real" and kept the irony bar high and the fashion bar low; Post-Malone with his face tattoos and corn rows, and Cardi B with her massive, disgusting peacock tattoo and fake boobs. They use their appearance as shock value to sell their music. When the money runs out, they will still be trashy. When time runs out, they will still be trashy.

(I miss the old days, when Jenny from the Block forgot where she came from because she went somewhere better. Nowadays, rappers with trashy taste drape themselves in jewelry and shower themselves in tattoos. All types of Trash are banging on the walls of J.Lo's fortress, forcing her to remember.)

Likewise, trendy hipsters with ugly tattoos that come from suburbia only dress the part of Trashy Outsider to attain "Realness." (In actuality they are a Hip Insider that is more "Fake" than their suburban simulacra alter ego.) They roleplayed as impoverished, while ironically improving the neighborhood and pricing out their working class fashion muses. In the end, when they are all done living in the city, they will choose to return to the suburbs from whence they came to live in elegant comfort, away from the crime and the poverty. 

Even in summer humidity, covering up your body for decency sake is instinctual. Not so if one is either category of modern Trash; they are somehow inclined to reveal puffy parts of their bodies, smeared tattoos and infected piercings. The class excuse is that the Classically Trashy don't know how to attempt elegance. Trashy Hipsters know, but choose not to. 

So long as Classically Trashy people are still the majority of inner city occupants, there will be little detectable elegance. In the way distant past, before J Lo, the working poor aspired to--and achieved elegance--every Sunday in Church. Trash Chic is a modern phenomenon that has equally impacted both groups.

Publicly revealing your brokenness in the form of Trashy attire, whether it be ironic or legitimate, does not make a person Real. Being "real" can never be expressed with fashion, whether based on trends or impoverishment, because truly being Real is something that only God can judge. And to be truly real is to be humble and contrite. To be genuine about your shortcomings is not something that can be worn. 

One lesson that I learned from my suburban upbringing, and the reality that I was reacquainted with during the quarantine, was that people in the suburbs proudly wear their virtue on their sleeve, even if they cannot measure up.