Someone told me recently, “You’re not artsy, Emma, but you have a lot of artsy friends.” I still don’t know how to take that one.
I had no idea what the fuck “artsy” meant before I got to Yale. Maybe it’s because I’m from Idaho, or maybe it’s because people in high school just don’t have enough taste to actually embody everything that “artsy” is. They might be into theatre, or in a band, or write for the school paper, but no one at my high school had yet evolved into a full-fledged artsy motherfucker.
My first encounter with the species came one of my first nights freshman year. I went to Brick Oven’s Sunday Special with two of my now-dearest—and artsiest—friends. I remember walking a few paces behind them as they huddled to light a cigarette. One took a puff and then, for the rest of the walk, the other simply carried it as an accessory. The prop dangled carelessly but thoughtfully between his index and middle fingers. I doubt it was still lit. It didn’t matter.
Their jorts swished in rhythm. One wore battered Reeboks and thrifted light-wash denim; the other, loafers and starched dark-wash denim. The contrast was cinematic: dirty artsy versus clean artsy, rebellion versus refinement. Maybe that was the moment I realized there was an entire taxonomy of artsiness and I had just entered its natural habitat.
Since then, I’ve met dozens of them: Hollywood artsy, music artsy, poetry artsy, and the elusive “general creative direction” artsy. They appear in clusters around Book Trader Café, identifiable by their oversized shackets, corded headphones, and the faint smell of Le Labo, cigarettes, or that pungent combination of both.
They call movies “films,” or, if they’re feeling particularly pretentious, “cinema.” They discuss “thinkers” instead of authors. They’re the first to know about the new underground band, but as I am unafraid to remind them, “not everything is fucking underground”.
They love TV Girl and The Smiths and LCD Soundsystem. They’ll tell you they discovered them. Somehow, they’ve all read Just Kids by Patti Smith. They are staunchly convinced Sven would let them into Berghain. They claim to find inspiration in Studio 54, a place they were not alive for but feel “spiritually connected to.” They quote Joan Didion when emotionally compromised. They have a favorite font—how fun!!! And somehow, they’re always either returning from or going to New York.
They are literally infatuated with corded headphones. The new technique I’ve noticed is that when music isn’t playing they sport the cords around their neck, adorned like jewelry, headphones unplugged kind of draped around the back of their necks. Maybe it’s for convenience’s sake . . . but also you best believe they’re letting people know what’s up like “yeah…I listen to MUSIC!” ok bud so do I.
Their rooms fall into two aesthetic categories: maximalist collage or tasteful minimalism. One is plastered with postcards, vinyl sleeves, and objects that are allegedly “sentimental.” (Translation: trash.) The other contains one lamp and a single, deeply intentional chair. There is no middle ground.
For a while, I tried to make sense of the chaos by drawing it out. Thus: the matrix.
Imagine a three-axis chart—because, of course, these people demand a third dimension. On the x-axis, you have clean to dirty. On the y-axis, Sun to Moon. On the z-axis, Blurry to Focus.
Clean artsy people are curated. Their hems are crisp; their haircuts have structure. They probably own an iron—though they’d never admit it. Their wardrobes are built around a “capsule philosophy.” They love dark socks, tailored jeans, and those structured shackets made of denim or canvas. Their bags are not backpacks but satchels, ideally containing a Moleskine notebook and one pretentious book, maybe Descartes or The Bell Jar.
Dirty artsy people are their antithesis: undone in a thoughtful way. They run barefoot through the grass, hair slightly damp, jewelry stacked with sentimental chaos. Their Jansport backpacks fray at the seams. They go skinny-dipping at Lighthouse Point and return to campus radiant and muddy. Their fraying tote bag is sticky from their kombucha leakage.
Then, on our next axis, we have Suns and Moons. The suns thrive in daylight on Cross Campus, sketching, talking about creative processes. They’re open, earnest, sometimes startlingly optimistic. They’re always on do not disturb. This isn’t by accident. They love being ~present~. They love statement earrings and have a healthy arsenal of them. They like neon jewelry and barrettes. Free People is their uniform . . . but they act like it’s an undiscovered brand. Their circadian rhythm is incredibly important to them, so they boycott windowshades in order to wake up with the sun. They treasure the natural light, and they let everyone know by posting pictures of light bleeding through autumnal leaves in East Rock.
Moons, on the other hand, listen to ambient music and are always strapped with their journals. Their bedrooms are dimly lit with a thoughtfully chosen colorful bulb which is yellow or orange. They philosophize. They own one candle that costs forty-five dollars. They drink black coffee exclusively. They are verbose about their disgust over the thought of an iced vanilla latte. The Instagram feed of a moon will not feature a single image of their face. If you try to make a joke about a recent trend or meme, they will scoff. Silly you for thinking they are chronically online. They are NOT!!! And they make that everyone’s damn business. They claim to be tapped into a different corner of the “cultural zeitgeist.”
Finally, Blurry versus Focused. Blurry art kids drift: they dabble in photography, sculpture, zine design, and some form of “creative consulting.” For some reason, they are fiercely anti-GCcal. They hate being pinned down. Their phones are always dead: it’s just a black rectangular prop for them. But, when it is on, they spend most of their time perusing their notes app, which is full of cryptic tidbits and idioms they thought were funny. Their computer cord is always tangled in their bag. They don’t have Instagram or Snapchat or Tiktok and are literally so annoying about it. They don’t read the news. (Hate to break it to you, but being “anti the news” isn’t like an admirable political stance.) They overcommit and underperform. They’re flaky, sometimes…oftentimes. Their personality in and of itself is ~ambiguous~ How the fuck is that possible?
Focused ones are intense, almost corporate about their craft. They have portfolios and artist statements. Their handwriting is crisp and they stay inside the lines. They probably have a pencil case. They start their day by listening to ”The Daily” or reading the Times. They are “pro-news.” Also not a political stance.
Most of these aestheticists exist somewhere in the murky middle, perpetually balancing mess and polish, sincerity and satire. The matrix is less of a chart, and more of a Pinterest mood board.
The matrix collapses under its own irony—becauset here’s the thing about these aesthetic posers: they’re a walking contradiction. They cultivate effortlessness with excruciating effort. They thrift sustainably, but also own unnecessarily expensive room spray. They insist they don’t care what people think, which is why they are constantly thinking about what people think.
It is easy to mock all this—and, clearly, I do—but part of me watches in awe. There’s something freeing about caring so deeply about beauty and vibe and the texture of a moment. The artsy friend notices things: the way the light hits a building at 4:00 p.m., the sound of a record spinning, the particular poetry of a cigarette held just so. They believe life should look interesting, and then they live accordingly.
Their “artsy-ness,” I’ve realized, is often the least interesting thing about them. It’s just the most visible. Beneath the curated chaos are people who are curious, generous, and endlessly imaginative. They make ordinary moments cinematic. They talk about music like it truly matters. They see beauty everywhere, even in things that are falling apart.
So yes, sometimes I roll my eyes when they say “cinema” or use the word “liminal” in casual conversation. But I also find myself defending them. Because even their pretension is a kind of hopefulness, an insistence that meaning still exists, that culture still matters, that dressing intentionally and thinking deeply and feeling too much are not cringe but necessary.
The artsy friend, for all their contradictions, is trying to live artfully in a world that rewards convenience. They are allergic to flatness, uncomfortable with apathy. They romanticize things that don’t deserve it, but they make you look at the world twice.
I think back to that first night outside often at Brick Oven: the cigarette, the denim, the choreography of it all. I get it now. They weren’t pretending to be interesting; they were trying to make life feel interesting. To resist the algorithmic sameness of everything. To make the world strange again.
Maybe that’s what being artsy really is: an act of resistance disguised as an aesthetic.
