It all started when my brother and I went shopping for shoes this weekend. In the Men's outdoor shoe section, he stopped cold. His face lit up and he kind of shrieked a bit.
'They're in my size,' he said.
'What's in your size, what, why are you so excited'? I asked.
'The Uggs, the male Uggs.'
I think the light left my face like 5:30 p.m. in the wintertime. My big brother was seen getting giddy over a celebrity boot. I was shocked.
'Now all you need are some big sunglasses, Chris, and the transformation to coastie will be complete,' I said.
'I already have a few pairs.'
'Well you still need a North Face jacket,' I scoffed, trying to move on.
'I've got that too, and that job at the KK probably isn't helping is it'?
We were at the point of no return. Instead of being on the first step on the slippery slope to coastiedom, my brother was sealing the deal. He was a page out of the Westchester in Wisconsin handbook. But with my brother's foray into unknown territory, I have decided my internal feud with coasties is pointless, and I am giving it up.
Some of you may be upset to hear this. Coastie/Sconnie rancor has reached a fever pitch over the past school year. You can't go anywhere without hearing someone complain about side ponytails, popped collars and leggings. Or hear retorts about cheese, farming and Carhartt jackets.
I've never really joined in the great debate. I figure making fun of someone's fashion sense in Wisconsin is like criticizing someone about how to grow oranges in Alaska'we are too far away from the fashion epicenters to be up on the latest trends so it's asinine for us to say what looks ridiculous or not. Under the microscope, we're all kind of slouchy.
But instead, we complain about the fashion choices of people who chose to come to UW-Madison, when schools closer to home would have sufficed. They see the same special things in this campus that we do. Yet we harp on them all of the time, call them out on the street, complain about their supposedly toxic personalities and the use of 'Daddy's money.'
It all seems very 'red scare' to me. We may not be holding tribunals about it, but a handful of Facebook groups with fiery message boards are close enough.
So I'm calling for it all to end. You don't have to join me. For some, making fun of other people is the lifeblood of college, but I'm done with it. I want my brother to feel comfortable wearing his Ugg boots and North Face jacket without being labeled as a snob. And I don't care if some people feel comfortable wearing furry boots when it's 50 degrees out. I wear T-Shirts in the winter; it's the same thing.
And who are we going to go after next, people with glasses? Where do they get off having vision impairments? They must think they're better than us because they get special codes on their driver's licenses. Sound silly? How do you think we look to people outside of our little campus bubble?
My mission is ambitious, but I am willing to lead the charge. I am coming before you as an upperclassman, full-time Madison resident and now coastie-advocate. Let's just get a beer together, hug it out and focus our attention on making fun of people who really deserve it'University of Minnesota kids.
