*All sarcasm intended
So you go to an art school, huh? Is it feeling pretty normal? That’s only because you’re doing it wrong.
You see, there are so many expectations attached to schools of this nature, and when you neglect to fulfill these expectations, society will disown you you can never truly call yourself an art school kid.
Thankfully, I’m here to save you. Below you will find a list of things you must do in order to please the artsy hipster gods. Once you complete them, your mother will finally look you in the eye again.
1. Have a song and dance prepared for every life event
Did you get dumped? Did you fail a math test? Maybe your perimenopausal mom got pregnant? Normal students would clam up when faced with these obstacles, but not an art school kid. They do not cave in under the pressures of life because they release their tension through pretentious song and dance numbers. Never mind the fact that some of them might major in creative writing or visual arts. No matter what talent got them into the school, all of them know how to throw down. All of them.
To make sure that you can compete with all of the other aspiring artists, I would suggest taking a few vocal lessons, and maybe a modern dance class or two. If you don’t have the money to take these lessons (as many starving artists don’t), you can still hone your performance skills by dancing on your kitchen table for balance and singing while you take a cold shower.
(Starving artists can’t afford hot water.)
2. Dye your hair every week
You may be thinking about using the cheap hair spray from Party City, but the truth is, you must use the permanent kind. The artistic types are always spontaneous; they are more concerned with the impulses of the heart than with the consequences bad decisions can bring them. They also don’t like to be labeled, and instead of being known as “the kid with black hair,” they would rather define their own identities by making all of their friends forget what their original hair color was.
So go ahead and dye your hair blue before your college interview with that Harvard alumnus. But beware, as a committed art school kid you are required to have red hair by Monday. Don’t disappoint the Trolls dolls—keep their culture alive.
***If you like your natural hair color, find a dye that matches it.
3. Constantly insist that cliques don’t exist at your school
Let’s face it: your school has little, if any resemblance, to normal high schools. Normal high schools are separated into groups of jocks, preps, nerds, creeps, freaks, and everything in between. But not your school—at your school everyone is a part of one big artsy-fartsy family because the administration’s effective screening process keeps your school close, tight-knit, and devoid of any talent-less and or lazy students. Everyone knows everyone else’s grandmothers, and every week students from every major sit down and talk about what it means to be a misunderstood, but clearly superior artist.
As you’re walking home with the select group you eat lunch with, have classes with, and go to parties with, talk about that one kid from third period and how strange it was that he tried to start a conversation with you guys. Immediately insist that you aren’t a clique.
4. You must consume the most obscure foods possible
Art School kids are cultured, and cultured people do not digest food like normies do. Their stomachs are intricate, individual structures and require the most specific delicacies lest they self-destruct. Art school kids are on a steady diet of kombucha tea, wasabi peas, “foreign” food, and double chocolate, caffeine caramel muffins from a local, but otherwise unheard of, café. If they do not have access to these nutritional necessities, they are forced to conform to their local Whole Foods Market.
But for an art school kid who is on a budget, (hashtagstarvingartist!), there are cheaper, but equally alternative, alternatives. An impossibly long swig of Arizona Green Tea and a bowl of limited edition ramen should suffice.
If an art school kid is caught eating at McDonalds, they will be force-fed to PETA.
5. You must shop at Urban Outfitters then deny it
Art school kids are crafty masterminds, and are skilled at avoiding social pitfalls. These pitfalls are caused by some of the most important aspects of life such as critique sessions, musical tastes, and most importantly, clothing choices. Art school kids are savvy shoppers when it comes to dressing down expensively. They buy clothes from Free People and Buffalo Exchange and bust their parents wallets buying purses created from recycled cereal boxes.
However, they do have a guilty pleasure.
Urban Outfitters provides them with expensive clothes at a less, but still very expensive price. When it isn’t Black Friday or Cyber Monday, their sales only reduce items by four dollars. By the time the truest of true art school kids get out of there, they are armed with one bag, and a very happy, but equally empty, wallet. But why is this a guilty pleasure?
Urban Outfitter’s advertisement department is too good and the normies have caught on.
Quick, grab a pair of scissors and start stylizing that T-Shirt you bought last Tuesday—you know, the one with the obnoxiously witty phrase? The one that you bought for 129 dollars?
(hashtagstarvingartist!)
