Five Kinds of People You Will Find At Your Liberal Arts College
1. The Fake Poor Person
The Fake Poor Person was first examined here and was noted to be a deceptive little devil. They mostly can be found in liberal arts colleges across the U.S. in their uniform of ripped Converse, Levis jeans, and torn flannel shirts. Their most treasured activity is smoking cigarettes while making dejected expressions, and complaining about needing a job. You’ll initially think to yourself, “How refreshing! Someone who’s not a complete trustafarian. I want to be friends with this person!” So you befriend them and you pick up on the nuances of class that can slip by in your everyday conversation. The whole time, however, you are thinking that this person is poor. Well, liberal arts poor, which loosely translates to middle class. But then you go over to their apartment and are shocked to find yourself in a luxury building. Your fake poor friend speeds by, avoiding contact with his doorman, and takes you up to his apartment, which is bigger than the house you grew up in. Meanwhile, you’re just sitting there with your jaw dropped feeling like you’ve been totally punk’d. Before you went to a liberal arts college, you didn’t know “fake poor” even existed. Growing up, the people who lived in the hills in nice split-level homes were considered wealthy, and the rest just fell in-between. There’s rich and not rich. The end! But going to a liberal arts college means you get to discover all the different bizarre levels of wealth. Not only is there rich, there’s also secretly rich, related to royalty, mini-celebrity, old money, new money, rejected money, riches to rags, Los Angeles diva rich, child actor rich etc. So many kinds of rich. Yay! So much fun….
2. Sensitive Angry Lesbian Punk
The sensitive angry lesbian punk can usually be found in schools like Hampshire, Evergreen, UC Santa Cruz, and Sarah Lawrence. They’ll usually have their hair dyed some outrageous color (So you cannot ignore their presence. They refuse to be marginalized, remember?!) and will wear Slits shirts, ripped fishnets, and finish it off with a bad attitude! In classes, they’re always angry about something, but you’re never sure what it is exactly. Their favorite activity is to be oppressed by various patriarchal heteronormative viewpoints. Their ham sandwich is even a patriarchal nightmare because it contains meat, which reminds them of a big evil penis. That’s why they end up resorting to veganism—to rid themselves of phallic food. When they’re not angry, they’re terribly sad about something. A typical devastating scenario for the sensitive angry lesbian punk would involve their girlfriend Sunshine Fantasia moving out of the co-op to live with their new girlfriend they met off the internet.
3. The Alternative Gay Boy
Gay boys who go to liberal arts colleges are allowed to love Lady Gaga, but they’re also required to have an encyclopedia knowledge of music like Kate Bush, Hole, riot grrrl, and other various powerful alternative female artists. By choosing to attend a school like Bard instead of Arizona State, they lose their right to wear a pink polo and live in ignorance of a figure like John Waters. These alternative gay boys are typically very attractive and elitist, but not enough to stop themselves from sleeping with 80% of the gay student population. They’re not afraid to cuddle and talk about Judith Butler afterwards though, which is sweet and appreciated. Their dream is to be featured in an alternative gay magazine, write a book, and go on tour with Hunx and His Punx.
4. The Person Who’s Painfully Out of Place
At every liberal arts school, there will be that person who clearly shouldn’t have attended a liberal arts school. You’ll look at them inquisitively with their baggy jeans, unfashionable haircut and the questionable comments they make in class and think to yourself, “This person is very brave for coming into this classroom full of skinny jeans and jaded expressions. I wonder if they accidentally enrolled in the wrong school?” It’s not because they’re necessarily strange. In fact, their normalcy is what sets them apart. Everyone at a liberal arts school has so many “issues” and loves to express themselves with their insane $2000 outfits. The Out Of Place Bro is by comparison nondescript and unassuming. I swear, it’s like if you’re not wearing a chic nightgown to class and talking about menstrual blood, you’re perceived as being a complete bore.
5. The Goth
People who are actually committed to the gothic lifestyle never cease to amaze me. Today people get called goth for wearing black combat boots and it’s cute because being goth is trendy and, oh my god, Jane Lane and Daria!! But real goths don’t screw around. Real goths wear weird makeup and do strange things in the bedroom and listen to music only a true goth could tolerate. They make everyone else look like complete normy wimps, and I’m sure they resent the fact that they’re en vogue. The whole point of being goth is to establish yourself as an outsider. If Alexa Chung is calling herself goth for wearing snakeskin pants, it must really chap a real goth’s ass.