I've Waited 10 Years for This: The Tumblr Aesthetic Is Back

Reblog if you relate.

- KIM DUONG

It was my DSLR-selfies-in-my-high-school-bedroom era. My index-finger-ballpoint-pen-mustache-tattoo era. My hashtag era.

It was 2010, and I was wearing circle skirts and polka-dot tights with "acid-washed" band tees cut into crop tops. I had successfully hunted down a pair of sold-out Jeffrey Campbell Lita platform boots and wore them everywhere despite suffering a sprained ankle. I even fell for an internet scam over $12 studded denim cutoffs because I wanted them so badly but my local mall was selling only low-rise Bermuda shorts. Anything to be the epitome of fashion-of ~Tumblr fashion~.

I rabidly thirsted for the very specific aesthetic, something I'd spend the next decade making fun of myself for. But now that said look is once again in (see: Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly, Kravis, the grungecore-meets-Jess-from-New-Girl vibes all over your feeds), I've realized something: I may have been cringe, but at least I was free.

In my small Tennessee town, where a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Cheesecake Factory was exciting news, I saw Tumblr as my window to life outside of the suburbs. I stared at GIFs of British TV dramas, read One Direction fan fiction, and kept up with trendy internet fashion that had yet to make it to my hometown (if it ever would-I can't stress the Bermuda shorts problem enough). My classmates would praise me for being a "trendsetter" and I would accept the compliment, all the while keeping the secret that I was actually behind on style compared to the big bloggers out there.