Millennial Moms, VSCO Girls Are Not New
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard the term VSCO girl, whether you have children or not. If you have children that are between the ages of 9-15, then your house either contains a VSCO girl, or contains a child that despises them. Their signature “sksksk” and “and I oop” are taking over the vernacular of our children, even if they wish they didn’t know what they meant.
A few weeks ago I got the scoop on what a VSCO girl was from my oldest son, and he expressed his indifference towards them and their ever growing squad. When I shocked him with my ability to speak like a VSCO girl, his head nearly exploded. I was curious to see if anyone my age had done a silly parody about them, or written an article about the boomerang effect of trends. To my surprise, the only articles I found were written by young millennial’s admiring these girls’ “new style” and confusion as to how this even became a thing.
For generation X, the micro generation, Xennials already exposed them to this trend in 1994. We wore long t-shirts and sweatshirts 3 sizes to big that draped ever so slightly off of one shoulder. Our shorts were constantly covered by our over-sized shirts, that we would tie up with our hair scrunchies to get our parents off our backs about looking like we weren’t wearing shorts. The short shorts of the decade on nearly all my friends wish lists, were Umbros. It didn’t matter we didn’t play soccer or that our shoe of choice was the “Jesus cruiser,” we wanted the shorts to complete the look.
In 1995, the movie Clueless came out and introduced these Xennial girls to the stereotypical Californian Valley Girl dialect. With the combination of the speech pattern and our love for tiny athletic shorts and hair scrunchies, the 90’s version of the VSCO girl was invented. True, we eventually ditched the relaxed clothes for the fancier duds of Cher and her pals, but the concept was the same. This year VSCO girls use metal straws and a Hydroflask to do their part on saving the turtles. In the 90’s we refused to use aerosol hairspray to save the ozone layer. We made friendship bracelets that we hung on our key chains, braided into our hair, or actually wore on our wrists. VSCO girls of today, use their expensive metal water bottle as a friendship bracelet holder and adorn their arms in multiple scrunchies in case someone asks for a spare. These girls are prepared with extras of everything, as were we. They are trying to make a marked change in the environment, just like the Xennials that came before them.
So, while I see how this trend can be confusing, it is certainly not new. Just like in the late nineties when ultra low ride jeans and bell bottoms came into fashion, we simply recycled the style from the 70’s and assumed they were our own. No way could our moms have been so cool to have had these clothes in their wardrobe as teens. They did. It was solidified when my mom pulled out an old high school picture of her donning the same type of jeans she had just purchased for me at 5-7-9, a now defunct store for 90’s teenage girls.
If you’re a millennial mom struggling with the idea of a VSCO girl, just you wait, Goth and Scene kids will be making a comeback and you’ll soon get to enjoy the “what was once old is now new again” nostalgia that us older moms are seeing today. Good luck out there moms – and I oop!
