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Im Trying To Save My Daughter From Being A VSCO Girl
BY LAURA MULLIN
Photo © Hannah Meloche/YouTube
Sep 16, 2019
Confession: my daughter wears Crocs. With socks.
Sometimes she rocks a bucket hat that gives off Gilligan’s Island meets Eminem vibes.
I catch her wearing rows of velvet scrunchies — up and down her arms.
Something weird is up.
Read more from Laura Mullin: I'm a Cool Mom — Spilling the Tea on My Kid's Slang
“Hey, what’s VSCO?” I ask her one day as I’m innocently helping do up her seashell necklace. She had started dropping phraseology like: “That water bottle is so VSCO. That sleepover was really VSCO. Let’s create a VSCO hangout!”
“You wouldn’t get it,” she tells me. I think, yeah, she’s probably right. But when I take her to school one day, I’m shocked to see girl after girl wearing the exact same look.
I decide to do a little parental probing to get to the bottom of my kid’s new style. I fall down a dreamy, colourful beach-inspired rabbit hole.
Here’s what I learn:
- VSCO is this '90s-meets-surfer-girl look that is taking over the net, and apparently my kid’s brain.
- VSCO is a combo of a person, a meme, an aesthetic and a uniform all rolled into one big online phenomenon.
- Girls everywhere seem to be aspiring to achieve that specific VSCO look.
- VSCO girls make the sound "sksksk."
VSCO began as an app with lots of filters and editing possibilities, as well as a feed that was created by two California guys who started Visual Source Company. Today it’s a $90 million company with over two million users. Certain online influencers on other apps like Tik Tok and Instagram have helped define the VSCO trend. And as a result, many young girls are starting to look virtually indistinguishable from one another.
Discovering all this sends a nostalgic chill down my middle-aged spine. I’m flooded with the visceral memories of my high school years when I so desperately wanted to be a preppie. My must-have uniform consisted of Ralph Lauren polo shirts, bermuda shorts and perpetually orange permed hair. In short — I wanted to be Molly Ringwald.
Other kids identified as headbangers or jocks, and the rest were a smattering of rappers, new wavers and nerds (side note: the nerds are doing just fine today).
It breaks my heart a little to see all this unfold. I want to shout to all the girls in Crocs carrying their Kanken bags, “Hey, don’t let some dudes in California dictate your look! It’s OK to be an individual — those scrunchies won’t make you a better person!”
But of course, I don’t, because I get it. These delicate years are pivotal: kids are scrambling to discover who they are, be well-liked and they just want to know where they fit in (or don’t) in the world.
Instead, I try to walk the fine line of not being too judgy and educating her about being manipulated by brands for profit. I understand the powerful pull to be accepted. So I talk to my daughter about why it’s better to be a leader than a follower. To embrace a diversity of looks. That she’s cool no matter what she wears.
And that she should NEVER EVER leave the house in Crocs.
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