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AROUTIOUNIAN: SALMON, NOT PINK
Yale Daily News
April 17 2014
Johnny Come Lately
By John Aroutiounian, Staff Columnist
Two winters ago, I stood on the beach in a remote part of western
Costa Rica, after having somehow managed to convince my poor parents --
all they wanted was one relaxing week to shake off the exhaustion of
their 8-to-8 hospital work schedules -- to forsake a less adventurous
vacation and rent a little bungalow on the edge of a tiny coastal
village.
If you were a local resident (or even a tourist, for that matter), the
sight of this guy standing on the beach would have seemed bizarrely out
of place. Clad in seersucker shorts and a polo from a Vineyard Vines
sale, I looked out at the shimmering bay as the obvious question hit:
"Who are you?"
The answer, in that moment of handicapping self-consciousness only
possible in a setting vastly different from what you're used to,
wasn't obvious then and it isn't now. I wasn't the extremely awkward,
slightly foreign, vested elementary school kid who would sprint home
after school. Nor was I the middle-schooler in Kentucky who came from
New York and started to pick up, slowly, all the social cues. But,
now a sophomore at Yale, I also knew that wearing a salmon (not pink)
polo and seersucker shorts didn't make me an East Coast yuppie on the
inside any more than it made that girl I'd pass on Old Campus every
day (wearing some variant of blue scales and red feathers) Lady Gaga.
Go ahead, psychoanalyze. It's not a hard case. After growing up in
an Armenian immigrant household where every day felt like a climb
for everyone involved, you say, you probably wanted validation, and
turned to the clothing of the WASP elect (even though this has become
so cliche that the WASP elect are now scrambling to diversify their
wardrobes). Or, perhaps, you wanted to stand out when you went home,
wearing "I go to Yale" because it was too obnoxious to say it aloud.
Or, you just liked pink.
All these explanations are probably somewhat true. Yale is full of
middle and upper middle class kids who resemble young, fit, hungry
dogs: They've tasted meat for the first time, and their eyes have a
crazed intensity about them. Go to the next J.P. Morgan information
session, or stop by the News, if you really don't know what I'm talking
about (or, for that matter, read through Yale College Council election
histories since time immemorial).
But as these questions of success and identity clash, weird things
start to happen - and the effects certainly aren't limited to any
class. People start to become their "hyper-selves," and soon it feels
like campus is drowning under the influence of its own individuality.
People become all kinds of archetypes: the bubbly (often wealthy) guy
with the great hair in all the photos, the Yale Political Union hack,
the YCC bureaucrat, the radical activist, the conservative crusader,
the Gaga, the jock. You could go on. As colleges like Yale become ever
more diverse and international, these archetypes take on all sorts of
new variations, but the fundamentals stay relatively constant. None
of these categories are bad in themselves (debatable, I know), but
they all present the possibility of their own pink polo moments.
When these moments happen, if personal experience is any guide,
another hard question can sometimes present itself: Which is the
bigger joke -- that my self has been narrowed into this specific
identity that only represents a small part of who I actually am,
or that I'll have to pretend to be the same person I was before I left?
Look, some people don't end up asking themselves these questions. Some
feel like their developed identities represent them very well, and
that's fine. I remember my personal surprise at seeing how comfortable
a group of students I was on a summer trip with felt in their suede
shoes, pants and jewelry. It wasn't showy masquerading as understated,
it was just understated. Ostentatiousness in America really is,
more often than not, insecurity or class-consciousness in disguise.
Everyone has heard the cliche that you should be yourself, because
everyone else is taken. But what do you do when you're already taken?
Everywhere you look, personal lives are individualized and planned:
parenthood, relationships, even relaxation. This makes the urge to
distinguish yourself on established, tangible terms very strong, and
it suggests something deeply wrong with American university life. It
leads to inadvertent close-mindedness, and it phases out a deeper
connection to intangibles.
John Aroutiounian is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College. His
column runs on alternate Wednesdays. Contact him at
[email protected].
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/17/aroutiounian-salmon-not-pink/
From: Baghdasarian
Yale Daily News
April 17 2014
Johnny Come Lately
By John Aroutiounian, Staff Columnist
Two winters ago, I stood on the beach in a remote part of western
Costa Rica, after having somehow managed to convince my poor parents --
all they wanted was one relaxing week to shake off the exhaustion of
their 8-to-8 hospital work schedules -- to forsake a less adventurous
vacation and rent a little bungalow on the edge of a tiny coastal
village.
If you were a local resident (or even a tourist, for that matter), the
sight of this guy standing on the beach would have seemed bizarrely out
of place. Clad in seersucker shorts and a polo from a Vineyard Vines
sale, I looked out at the shimmering bay as the obvious question hit:
"Who are you?"
The answer, in that moment of handicapping self-consciousness only
possible in a setting vastly different from what you're used to,
wasn't obvious then and it isn't now. I wasn't the extremely awkward,
slightly foreign, vested elementary school kid who would sprint home
after school. Nor was I the middle-schooler in Kentucky who came from
New York and started to pick up, slowly, all the social cues. But,
now a sophomore at Yale, I also knew that wearing a salmon (not pink)
polo and seersucker shorts didn't make me an East Coast yuppie on the
inside any more than it made that girl I'd pass on Old Campus every
day (wearing some variant of blue scales and red feathers) Lady Gaga.
Go ahead, psychoanalyze. It's not a hard case. After growing up in
an Armenian immigrant household where every day felt like a climb
for everyone involved, you say, you probably wanted validation, and
turned to the clothing of the WASP elect (even though this has become
so cliche that the WASP elect are now scrambling to diversify their
wardrobes). Or, perhaps, you wanted to stand out when you went home,
wearing "I go to Yale" because it was too obnoxious to say it aloud.
Or, you just liked pink.
All these explanations are probably somewhat true. Yale is full of
middle and upper middle class kids who resemble young, fit, hungry
dogs: They've tasted meat for the first time, and their eyes have a
crazed intensity about them. Go to the next J.P. Morgan information
session, or stop by the News, if you really don't know what I'm talking
about (or, for that matter, read through Yale College Council election
histories since time immemorial).
But as these questions of success and identity clash, weird things
start to happen - and the effects certainly aren't limited to any
class. People start to become their "hyper-selves," and soon it feels
like campus is drowning under the influence of its own individuality.
People become all kinds of archetypes: the bubbly (often wealthy) guy
with the great hair in all the photos, the Yale Political Union hack,
the YCC bureaucrat, the radical activist, the conservative crusader,
the Gaga, the jock. You could go on. As colleges like Yale become ever
more diverse and international, these archetypes take on all sorts of
new variations, but the fundamentals stay relatively constant. None
of these categories are bad in themselves (debatable, I know), but
they all present the possibility of their own pink polo moments.
When these moments happen, if personal experience is any guide,
another hard question can sometimes present itself: Which is the
bigger joke -- that my self has been narrowed into this specific
identity that only represents a small part of who I actually am,
or that I'll have to pretend to be the same person I was before I left?
Look, some people don't end up asking themselves these questions. Some
feel like their developed identities represent them very well, and
that's fine. I remember my personal surprise at seeing how comfortable
a group of students I was on a summer trip with felt in their suede
shoes, pants and jewelry. It wasn't showy masquerading as understated,
it was just understated. Ostentatiousness in America really is,
more often than not, insecurity or class-consciousness in disguise.
Everyone has heard the cliche that you should be yourself, because
everyone else is taken. But what do you do when you're already taken?
Everywhere you look, personal lives are individualized and planned:
parenthood, relationships, even relaxation. This makes the urge to
distinguish yourself on established, tangible terms very strong, and
it suggests something deeply wrong with American university life. It
leads to inadvertent close-mindedness, and it phases out a deeper
connection to intangibles.
John Aroutiounian is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College. His
column runs on alternate Wednesdays. Contact him at
[email protected].
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/17/aroutiounian-salmon-not-pink/
From: Baghdasarian