Ah, the year 2009: The Black Eyed Peas were still together,
Nigahiga was the most subscribed youtuber.
Our parents hadn't found out about Facebook yet.
And I was just about to enter middle school aka the most awkward three years of my entire life.
Now I never shy away from an opportunity to embarrass myself
publicly in front of millions of strangers on the internet.
So today I thought I'd do a fun little video where I review my truly iconic middle school style.
Now I haven't looked at photos of my middle school self in quite some time because I kind of just wanted to erase those three years
selectively from my memory because they were painfully awkward, but recently on a weekday afternoon
my mom just sent me like 50 photos of me as a kid.
So I thought today would be a great time to dig up those traumatic childhood memories together.
Also reminisce about a time before tik tok when 13-year-olds were actually ugly as hell and didn't look hotter than me
Okay, so my first photo is ~technically~ from the end of fifth grade.
But I just wanted to show this photo because it is such an iconic look.
The aquarium t-shirt, the khaki shorts, the Crocs
These are actually not real Crocs by the way
I think these are fake ones from Payless because they were like 20 bucks cheaper than real crocs like the bougie kids at my school had.
You guys will also get well acquainted with this haircut throughout all of my photos. If I'm not wrong,
this is like the classic Asian kid haircut
every Asian mom for some reason thinks this is the most flattering shape on my bulbous ass head.
I remember having to get my bangs cut like every six weeks too
and I just hated talking to the hairdresser cuz like I'm fucking
11 years old. I don't have a life. There aren't boys to talk about or like career plans.
I'm just sitting there like waiting for the haircut to be over so I could play Nintendogs again.
Overall though, this photo is definitely still in like cute little kid territory
and I haven't gone into my atrociously awkward stage yet.
So. *laughs in fear of what is to come*
Let's, let's venture onwards. This is a photo from that same summer.
Still rockin' that Anna Wintour haircut.
The reason I love this photo is that before I knew how to sew and thrift flip
I would draw my own t-shirts.
I would buy those like $1 t-shirts from Joanne's and then draw on them with felt-tip markers.
And this was one of my favorites. It has a lion and it says
rawr.
Period. If that's NOT the most fucking 2008 shit you've ever seen.
To complete the look, may I draw your attention to...
these fucking camo capris.
Here is a better photo, basically
these were some type of outdoor pant that I got from LL Bean
and they were the type that are like, a full-length normally but
you can roll up the bottom and then attach them with like little snappy tabs to hold them up.
Also as you can see in this picture
I did
decisively
the only thing that could make this situation even worse
which is to roll down the top of the pants to make them even more
low waisted than they already were and I thought I made it
look cuter for some godforsaken reason.
God, the 2000s were a weird time.
Here is another one of the t-shirts that I drew. This one if you zoom in real close you can see that it's two eggs
with mouths and one of them is saying
"blimey" to other one.
What?! That doesn't make any sense!
The funny thing is, I remember making that t-shirt and thinking it was so cool and like "British".
Here's a spicy little winter look for you guys. I got this hat the winter of sixth grade
I would wear it to school even though it was against the rules to wear hats in school.
So I was a little rebel there and when I was feeling extra weird,
you know how some kids like pull down their hoodie strings and hide into their hoodies
I would do that same shit with my hat,
I would like pull down the top flap and buckle the straps
so I'd be like enclosed inside my little furry hat.
As you can tell I was a really normal kid.
This is the outfit that I wore pretty much every single day of sixth grade.
I don't know about you guys,
but every single year
I would go to the mall and I would buy a hoodie and that was like my hoodie for the year.
Every single day at school I would wear it the sleeves would get like so worn out
that my mom would have to sew them back together
no matter what outfit I put together this hoodie was going on top.
It was like my safety blanket as a kid. It felt really good to have something
oversized and familiar.
As a 21 year old I do the same shit, but just with a weighted blanket in the comfort of my own home.
I wore a tie-dye t-shirt underneath for a little pop of color and you can also spot my LL Bean pants
unfurled in their full glory. I think of all the outfits in this video
this one might be the worst not because it's the most embarrassing, honestly,
this is one of the most neutral outfits I've seen
but just because I wasn't trying at all and I remember feeling really cool that
I didn't try it was like a point of pride for me to be like
"i'M noT LikE oTHer giRLs who care about how they look."
It's totally cool to not give a shit about your appearance or to really give a shit about your appearance.
But I think the sad thing is
feeling like this sense of superiority
based on how you look or dress or like judging other people based on that.
Here is me and The Squad at my friend's Bar Mitzva.
So, I was just coming up on 13 years old. This was like prom when we were in middle school.
I remember breaking it down on the dance floor to teach me how to dougie
and there was this like really hot DJ who was
teaching us all how to dougie.
"Teach me how to dougie teach me how to dougie teach me teach me how to dougie teach me how to dougie"
and me and all of my friends thought that if we dougie-d good enough
then this DJ would like wanna kiss us or something.
We were like all obsessed with him.
I borrowed this blue dress from my sister, which honestly, like, as far as middle school fashions go,
was not too bad a choice.
Even though I don't wear ballet flats anymore,
I do like this little t-strap detail around the toe box.
So if the shoes were like pointed and a heel and had that t-strap detail, I think I would wear them.
So like basically just if they were different shoes I would wear them.
This burnt sienna baroque patterned hoodie was from Eddie Bauer.
It was actually from one of those fancy hipster like rock climbing brands.
So this was the most expensive piece of clothing
I owned at the time and on bottom I'm wearing those flip-flops that cost like $2 from Old Navy.
You'd get a pair every summer, absolutely destroy them,
then you buy another pair the next summer
and they were like definitely made in a sweatshop by child labourers
but we didn't know that when we were kids.
Aww here's a cute one of me posing with my middle school crush
(my middle school crush being the President of the United States Barack Obama)
I'm honestly scared to put this online because there is a high probability that this gets turned into a meme.
This just is the most middle school dance photo I've ever seen.
Everything from the floral dress that like would be cute
but I covered it up with a cardigan because I was too shy to show my shoulders and best of all the fedora
with a little chevron stripe on it
and I put a glow stick on top of my fedora.
This was the outfit that I wore on the first day of seventh grade and I was so
incredibly proud of this outfit.
At this point I had finally gotten the balls to start dressing up a little bit and expressing my style.
Granted my style still looked really fucking awkward.
But I was trying!
I thought this gray floral top from American Eagle and it was the first thing that I had chosen out for myself.
That was kind of fancy and nice, of course in classic 2000s style,
I had this like
modesty cami that I got from Aeropostale that I would layer underneath my scoop neck tops
so that I wouldn't show too much of my
non-existent
pre-teen cleavage.
Pre-teen cleavage is a phrase I never want to hear myself say again (*internal scream*).
My favorite part of this whole look though is my holster of Prismacolor pens.
If you were an art kid growing up, you know that Prisma colors were like the Tesla of art supplies,
they were so expensive
but if you timed it out right
you could use your 50% off Michaels coupon and layer it with another 20% off Michaels coupon
and then you could get them for kind of a good deal.
"I don't need to go to rehab for coupons. You're the one that has the problem."
Oh boy. Welcome to eighth grade.
This is where things get real awkward. As if they weren't awkward enough already.
At this point, I was finally trying to grow out my bangs that my mom had cursed me with when I was a child.
My hair looks like 2000s Justin Bieber, an emo girl on tumblr, and a ferret had a baby
And it is not a look.
Here, I'm sporting my new 8th grade hoodie, which says Aero down the side.
In 2010 for some reason fashion was just logos.
It was just "How big an Aeropostle or Abercrombie logo can you fit on your clothing?"
"And can you have it on your t-shirt, on your pants, and on your hoodie?"
Which I guess coincidentally also describes street wear today.
I do not know what went on in my middle-school brain.
Oh god, you don't think it can get worse than it does.
At this point, I was getting far in the journey of growing out my bangs
and they were getting increasingly side-swept.
At the time I thought I looked like the daughter in The Incredibles with like a mysterious hair swept over the eye
but in reality I looked like a hairy pirate.
I remember I bought this top full price at a Nordstrom.
It was like $35 in 2012 money.
I love the nautical stripes and I thought the button detail on the shoulder was like super cool and military-inspired.
At the time I also thought that it "draped nicely" when in reality it just
fits really really bad.
As you can see, I'm following through with my nautical theme. For a period of like 4 years of my life
I would buy anything with navy and white stripes on it. I thought it was so cute.
These are some New Balance sneakers that I got from Sears spiced up with some bright red laces.
Like the fucking Hype Beast that I was.
For some reason me and my friends at this point really got into lacing our sneakers in an interesting cool way
so we would look up tutorials online of how to lace your sneakers in unique ways.
I guess that was like my way of making a fashion statement albeit a very bad one.
I thought I would leave you with this final photo
which is what I wore to my 8th grade dance to wrap up my middle school experience.
Firstly let's address the elephant in the room here, which is my expression in this photo.
I used to hate having my photo taken so much, which is just a little bit ironic,
now, that Instagram and YouTube like is literally how I make my money.
I used to hate it so much when my mom would ask to take a photo of me
that to spite her I would make the
ugliest face possible so that's what I'm doing in this photo honestly, even if I wasn't making that expression,
I think my face would still be pretty ugly so
ha, gotcha there mom!
At this point I was kind of blossoming into my own style
and I was actually really proud of the dress and shoes that I chose for this dance.
Back in 2012 color-blocking was the hottest trend hence my choice of this two-toned creamsicle dress.
The colors are a little bit 2012
but overall I think that the silhouette is pretty flattering and a good choice for, what was I like 14?
I wasn't getting too sexy, but I still have a little bit of a waistline going on.
Alright, I think I have thoroughly embarrassed myself enough today.
Thank you guys so much for watching
I hope you enjoyed and I hope this shows you that like no matter how shitty your style is
There's plenty of time in your life to improve or to change it
I really started from the bottom and now - here I am: slightly above average.
Thanks again for watching and I will see you guys next week. Bye!
♫ soft jazzy outro music ♫