I once knew a girl named Teresa who decided to have everyone call her Trendy, which is a bit ballsy if you ask me. Luckily, she was in fact pretty damn trendy, I begrudgingly must admit, with her short-cropped burgundy hair, nose piercing, and effortless knowledge regarding theatre and obscure European electronic bands. But what about people like me? The untrendy ones. The ones hailing from Kansas, whose original knowledge of music festivals derived from the local Barton County Fair that hosted an up-up-up-and-coming country band. The untrendy one who thought the Buckle was still hip by calling it “The Buckle,” and even worse, wore clothes from said “The Buckle.” How do me and the likes of my untrendy brethren become like Trendy and appear ‘trendy’?
After two years of living in Chicago, I figured out how to achieve this ‘cool’ hip status because even unbeknownst to me, my ineptitude at being trendy is sort of trendy in Chicago. Here, I realized that the more I didn’t attempt to appear trendy and in-the-know, the trendier I became.
So, listen up fellow untrendies and trendies who want to be untrendy because it’s the “in” thing to do. I’ve got my quick list of how to fit in by ‘not fitting in’ in Chicago.
- Walk in Wicker Park. Don’t run here. Don’t eat here. Don’t rent an apartment unless you’re a gay married couple with a baby on the way. Walk around here and do nothing else.
- Live in Logan Square. What was once primarily a Latin American neighborhood is slowly being gentrified. Hot. Gentrification is super sexy.
- Dance at Danny’s Tavern in Bucktown. Everyone at Danny’s is an attractive specimen of a person and a beautiful semi-professional dancer. It’s like a house party but it’s not. It’s a bar. A poorly-lit bar and as such, the dark lighting supplies an air of mystery to everyone including the guy wearing the “I love the Clash” T-shirt.
- Go to the The Art Institute of Chicago once a month for new exhibitions. (Lie to all of your friends that you went. The lying part is what is trending.)
- Tell strangers in a Bulgarian accent “I do improv. We should play together soon.” This is a huge trend in Chicago right now.
- Sleeping bags are in this year! In Winter, wear a full-length brown Michael Kors coat that hides every inch of your body, preferably including your face. You will look both like a brown turd and a rolled up tootsie roll. Both styles are hot in the winter season.
- Catch a John C. Reilly concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Lincoln Square. Leave the concert hall early to meander up and down the square, marveling at your soon-to-be future as a trendy parent on wheels aka as a baby stroller chauffeur.
- The classic Chicago staples, hot dogs and deep dish pizza, are the food to be seen eating! Gorge your watering mouth on some Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s pizza. Clark Street Dog and Red Hot Ranch all the way for those wieners…or, Byron’s. That’s Obama’s favorite place, which, unfortunately, has depreciated its trendy value.
- Go to Hollywood Beach with a book! Reading is in these days in the windy city.
- Finally, in my top 10 Chicago trends, two words. El Train. Public Transportation. Take it. Okay, technically that was six words, but you get my drift.
- Heed all the above advice.
