HALLOWEEN VVIBES

 This is a Halloween special and I am sorry for having no legs as a skeleton, it’s not my fault, Renner hasn’t made skeleton pants yet.

I love Halloween, like any other alternative bitch. I think it’s a vibe. Me and my college friends have been celebrating together for the last 2 years but this year we won’t be able to because of the pandemic.

The pandemic hasn’t been easy, it’s weird to think I haven’t seen my friends in months. I miss them a lot, and our shenanigans the most, going to haunted thrift shops and eating Arab food, drinking soda at the bar, and complaining...

There was this one time we went to a thrift shop so haunted that it seems to me, now that I remember it, that we were actually stuck in another dimension for a couple of hours. I swear to you, that shop was infinite, the more we walked through it the bigger and weirder it got, there were used bed frames and baby cradles, industrial sinks, couches, as well as used books, CDs and clothes, but everything, especially the room full of old bed frames and cradles, was so haunted, even remembering it gives me the creeps, 0/10, would not go back there. Tina went there the other day and found a really cute dress.

vvibing in a skeleton sweater from (R$ 99, sale price, 2019), skeleton gloves (R$?, 2014), skeleton socks (R$12, 2019), a lobster cap (R$30max, 2018), all from renner, vintage-inspired combination shorts (R$ I made them, 2018), and sunglasses (R$40, 2019)

There was this other shop, which seemed to be run by gnomes dressed as tiny old ladies, it’s so humid and hot in there, the light is fluorescent and weirdly weak amid all the stuff they have as if there’s so much water in the air, so much clothing and shoes and toys that the light barely touches the floor. The clothes hang in parallel metal racks and you can easily open up space and walk through the clothes, or make a window to have weird chats.

To me, that shop is the definition of a faery portal. The shoes stay on shelves or on the floor, under the clothes that are near a wall, and to buy things you have to hand them to an old lady (possibly fae) who will write the prices on a piece of paper that you take to the front desk to pay for. While you are paying, the things you bought are brought to you by another lady, and you are left waiting for your friends, sitting on the sidewalk.

The weirdest thing is that we have no pictures of this shop. We took pictures in all of the other shops we went to that day, but none there.

Sometimes I wonder, if I say my name to one of the old ladies, will I be trapped there? If I tell them my name will I turn into an old lady and be forced to work there forever?

Have you ever been to places that seemed normal at first but something was off?

HALLOWEEN, SKELETON COSTUME, SKELETON, SKELETON MEMES, SPOOKY, LOJAS RENNER, SUÉTER DE ESQUELETO, SKELETON SWEATER

VVIBE CHECKING: Why is this show so hard on teenagers? (A rant about Euphoria)

 [Spoiler Alert]

I stopped watching Euphoria in episode four. I am sorry but I won’t be able to write a full review.

VVIBE CHECKING: Euphoria [SEASON 1 SPOILERS!!]

 [Spoiler Alert]

I did not vvibe with Euphoria.

VVIBE WITH ME: a very emotional review of Derry Girls

I have watched Derry Girls more than 3 times, I watched it with my brother, I forced my parents to watch it with me and long story short, I just vvibe with this show.

I love Derry Girls for a number of reasons, most of them related to the fact it’s beautifully written. It’s the most delicate and realistic show about teenagers that I’ve ever seen even though it’s a comedy. I have yet to see Euphoria, but honestly, I don’t think there’s a show airing that understands so gracefully how messy being a teenager really is. It reminds me a lot of Inbetweeners but it’s so much better, it’s not only written by a woman, it shows women, young and old, in a realistic and funny, yet not disrespectful, way.

I love the way Erin’s parents are written, Mary and Gerry are a wonderful couple and Mary clearly runs everything but Gerry is not just a dad, he is the dad, he picks up food, he wants his kid to be happy, he loves his wife and her family and even though Grandpa Joe is always being rude. I love how stuff doesn’t affect Mary and Gerry’s relationship, they are just good parents, they are well-written parents.

There are two moments that make me think of this, one is when Gerry sees Erin and the crew at the concert in Belfast, never fails to make me cry happy tears, the other is when Mary doesn't give Erin money to buy a dress for the dance, but genuinely cares about Erin going, even when her date doesn’t show up.

Erin is ambitious, Michelle is unapologetic, Clare is smart, Orla is crazy, the kind of person who could be a star in the creative world. But they are far from perfect, I mean, an American rewrite would make Erin a journalism prodigy, Clare the perfect A student obsessed with Harvard, also Michelle would be the most beautiful girl at school and Orla an art genius, but they are not that, they are weird because they are not who they are supposed to be yet.

An American rewrite would also make Jenny a mean girl but that's the beauty of Derry Girls, Jenny is not a mean girl, she's just annoying like most people you'll meet in real life who are not bad or mean or cruel, they are just annoying and boring, and that's fine.

Let's be real, we all know a Jenny in real life

Now talking about being a teenager, as much as I like to pretend that my teenage years were wild, they were actually pretty boring, besides almost hooking up with a teacher and pining after a guy 8 years older than me that has always been ridiculously respectful, it was also throwing up in front of said guy and sitting alone at a party wishing said teacher would pick me up. I did kiss a boy who was in a band, that was cool, maybe the coolest night of my high school, my friends were doing body shots between their boobs and I was kissing the most handsome boy at the party, it was the adolescence Skins had promised us I guess, I mean I never watched Skins, because, when I was 15, I was watching Doctor Who and Sherlock, I was, even if I didn't want to admit back in the day, still a kid.

Anyway, being a teenager is usually an awkward act of pretending you know what to do until you figure out what to do and by the time you figure it out, you’re probably around 20 or 21 and being a teenager is disappointing too, you spend your entire childhood imagining and watching things about being older and going out and living incredible things and when you get to it you are just pimply, awkward, restless and you have no money or permission to do things like go to the places cool older people go like bars and parties. So it’s an age of frustration and learning to deal with it and also the pressures of the real world.

And no one tells you that being a teenager is ridiculous and frustrating because kids just don’t know it yet and adults like to pretend their adolescence was perfect and wild and fun and even when they talk about the bad moments, they tell you about it in such a nostalgic way like even the bad moments were good you know? I wonder if that could be one reason for such high rates of teenagers suffering from depresh.

In conclusion, Derry Girls just gets it, the lack of power in being a teenager but also thinking you are unstoppable and immortal, and not in a Euphoria or Skins way, but immortal as in giving yourself too much importance when honestly you are just 17 and no one really cares about what you do and the stuff you are up to or will care in a couple of years. I think what most shows don’t get about adolescence is the fact that teenagers want power, they want freedom or at least their image of freedom. Maybe it’s traveling with their friends, maybe it’s being heard, maybe it’s being able to do things without getting permission from your parents. But the fact is that Derry Girls gets it, it’s about the longing for freedom and power and not actually having it, because all the girls have parents that show up constantly throughout the show, and more than that those parents are people too. They are not just filler characters, in the Take That concert episode, when all the moms are having tea discussing what they are gonna do when the girls get back, it’s so real, it feels like a conversation my mom would have had 7 years ago with my best friends’ moms and it feels nice.

All stills were taken from the Derry Girls IMDB page.

NOT A VVIBE: Tennis Skirt

I don’t really like this skirt anymore, it’s just not a vvibe. I think the internet oversexualized it and sometimes I wonder if there’s still a way to style it and not feel like a sex doll. 

I’ve been seeing a lot of this weird infantilization of adult women lately. I remember when it started, back in the day it was just a kink people talked about on tumblr, but it grew into 25-year-olds wearing things that have Baby Girl written on it, and to me, it’s a little disturbing.

What really bothers me is the idea that dressing childlike doesn’t come from a place of innocence, it comes from a place of sexualization of childlike behaviour and aesthetic. The image we have of sex changed and got more infantilized on the internet for some reason and it is very damaging for actual children or young teens.

I feel like this kind of clothing sends the wrong message to young girls and it also creates this distorted image that there are adult women who are like that. It’s almost an inverse of a study I’m reading, “Impact of Age-Ambiguous and Sexualized Clothing Styles on the Self-Concept of Early Adolescent Females” by Laurabeth Allyn. 

She talks about the impact of girls dressing older and in a sexualized way in early adolescence, and it makes me wonder about the impact of seeing women dressing younger, much, much younger and taking pictures with giant plushies and pig-tails on teens, but that’s a discussion for when I finish reading her study. 

And that’s fucking scary, it’s scary to see 25-year-old women dressing like Lolita, acting like kids by faking a look of innocence and naivety to a male audience and it’s scary to see how the male audience responds to it.

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for dressing sexy, but I like tight jersey dresses and deep necklines, I can’t help but feel like this skirt and this aesthetic is sexy in the wrongest and most vile way because it makes me look younger. It makes every girl look younger.

Let me know what you think about it, it can’t be that this is only problematic for me and another 6 people between Tumblr and Tik Tok, and I seriously would love to talk about it.

vvibing to Flowerball by The Wombats, which I accidentally discovered just this morning, despite loving The Wombats. I like the way love hurts a little bit when Matthew Murphy talks about it. Not saying that in an emo way, it's just that people and relationships are never easy. My therapist asked me how my latest relationship is going and I actually said: "as well as it ca, there are two people involved so I can't really ask for much if I wanted peace I'd be alone."

TENNIS SKIRT, BABY GIRL, DD/LG AESTHETIC, AESTHETICS, LIGHT PINK SKIRT, LIGHT PINK, BEIGE SWEATSHIRT, EUPHORIA, RIVERDALE

VVIBE WITH ME: Declan McKenna

 The way this boy has such a clear idea of what he wants is so scary and also the reason I adore him and his music. 

Declan is 21 years old, he was born in the same year I was, and his songs bring me peace. Not because his songs are calm or talk about the world the way Jack Johnson (except on Sleep Through the Static, which was a very heavy album) does, but because someone else sees what I see and someone else is mad enough to scream about it. 

makeup always on point

I only started formally listening to his songs last month but since then I’ve been completely obsessed with everything he has to say. From the song’s lyrics to the interviews, the way Declan sees the world around him is fascinating. His songs talk about social problems, about politics, about prejudice, and the way people are suffering but it’s not annoying and well… pedant like some other artists. It’s the voice of someone who has grown up seeing this stuff and just wants to call people out on their bullshit. I feel like he is very sincere in his songwriting.

The feeling he gives me is that he’s not purposefully trying to write these songs, these are just the subjects running around in his head all the time. Maybe it’s because we were born in the same year and I’m projecting my own dissatisfaction in the world onto him, but I feel like we come from the same place, just laying your head on your pillow and thinking: “am I the only one who feels like the world is ending and not one cares?”

And the way he talks about it... how he has such a clear idea of what he wants for each song and how he talks about the subjects he beautifully writes about with so much certainty, I mean I love the confusing and artistic way Alex Turner breaks down his music but it is refreshing to see someone with such a clear idea of what they were trying to convey.

I have listened to both of his albums and can’t get enough of them, the first one, released when he was 18 if I’m not mistaken, is ridiculously mature for an artist so young with songs like Paracetamol, Listen to Your Friends, and Brazil, which are on the more serious side and my personal favorite, Why Do You Feel So Down, a fun energetic song where he kind of makes fun of himself.

vvibing in a polo shirt, large, ralph lauren ($myex's), holographic sequin hot pants(?) or shorts(?) from forever 21 (R$99, 2014), pink duvet ($mybrother's), silk pillowcase that looks like the one from Howl's Moving Castle ($ I made it), sunglasses (R$40, 2019), dog cap from renner (R$30max, 2018)

And this second one, released last month, Zeros is the name of it, full of even more serious subjects, like humans destroying nature, technology, people’s expectations, conspiracy theories, and ignorance. All of this in a slightly futuristic, sci-fi sounding album. I currently can’t even name a favorite song of this album because it’s simply fantastic and it hits something deep, deep inside me.

So I want to dance to those songs, I want to see him live, I want to shout all the lyrics because they just make me feel hope. Not because there is something truly hopeful in them but because someone else sees what I see.

vvibing to Why Do You Feel So Down by Declan McKenna. Do you ever get this weird impression that people think you are cooler than you actually are and they are a little disappointed when they get to know you? Or is that just me?

VVIBE WITH ME: in a Large Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt + Pink Fishnets

I think I peaked at 19 and should have died there, I’m not being dramatic, I just had everything I had ever wanted.

I was living in London when I was 19, studying at the London College of Fashion, living the dream you could say. It had always been my dream to live there because of Doctor Who and my ridiculous love for British stuff, from music to tv to food, I still miss cocoa pops.

This polo shirt is from that semester abroad, it’s my ex’s, he was fucking huge, he was a rugby player on the weekends, hence why the shirt is a dress on me, but I didn’t vibe with it until this year and before that, I didn’t vibe with polos in general until I got obsessed with Kingsman: Secret Service in 2019.

vvibing to Greek Tragedy by 

The Wombats because it

 was my song with my ex,

his name was Paris and

the first thing that crossed

my mind when we met was

“what a fucking greek tragredy, huh?”

You see I already adored Kingsman and Taron Egerton, but I had a brutal Taron Egerton as Elton John phase in which I watched only Rocketman for a month and a half. Every friday I’d go to the cinema and watch it alone.

There was something so delicate and brutal about that movie, might write about it someday, but back to the point, I was having a mean bitch phase, I was angry and that anger turned into only wearing boy’s clothes and black, red, and grey for 6 months, and I was obsessed with Eggsy, so I bought a black polo shirt.

Also, the existence of chav culture fascinates me, not in a bad way, I just think it’s kind of cool and also the origin of the word “chave” in Brazilian Portuguese, which is used to describe the Brazilian version of chavs.

I then declared, probably whilst drinking a beer, that polo shirts would come back soon, in 1 year to cool kids and 2 to mainstream buyers, I think I was correct, I’ve been seeing them a LOT over the last few months and I believe after Covid officially ends we are going to see it everywhere.

vvibing in a polo shirt, large, ralph lauren ($myex's), pink fishnets (R$12, 2013), pink duvet from zelo($mybrother's), red duvet from zelo($mymom's), sunglasses from 25 de Março (R$40, 2019)

Anyways, I really vibe with them now and I also want a striped rugby jersey, as soon as quarantine is over I’m gonna go thrifting with Tina to find it.

Are you also vvibing with polo shirts? How are you guys? What's the next thing on your wishlist?

OUTFITS, OUTFIT OF THE DAY, OUTFIT INSPIRATION, TREND FORECASTING, POLO SHIRT, OVERSIZED, OVERSIZED FASHION INSPO, DARK BLUE, ROYAL BLUE

VVIBE WITH ME: to Conan Gray's Generation Why

I am 22 and I feel quite lost. I truly don’t know what to do with my life, I can’t bring myself to believe in the system we live in and I don’t know how to deal. I feel like a spoiled child who has now discovered they have to work to be able to live, so when Conan Gray said:

“We are the helpless, selfish, one of a kind
Millennium kids, that all wanna die
Walking in the street with no light inside our eyes
We are the worthless, cursed with too much time
We get into trouble and lose our minds
Something that I've heard a million times in my life
Generation why”

I really vvibed with that because I was born in 1998 and although I always knew I’d have to work, since I was born middle class in an emergent country, it infuriates me that the idea of success to the world these days is basically selling your soul for money and status. You have to give up everything to have a successful career and, if you wanna have a “real job” in anything, it’s expected of you to give up your health, your happiness, your sanity, all of your time, to make money to other people (because they don’t pay much even if you are doing yours and other 3 people’s job) so they can pay you a mediocre health insurance until maybe one day if you are really, really lucky and you find a fucking pot of gold, you can actually make money too.

And we are fucking depressed, it’s too much since the day we were born; have good grades, get into a good college, the phrase “work while they sleep”, just let us chill for one second, geez. I mean we are gonna end up losing our dream job to someone whose daddy is in the business anyway.

vvibing in a green plaid shirt ($15 in a nyc clearance store), a double-sided jacket I made for my sportswear class (R$400, the fabric was custom printed), black high waisted shorts from forever 21, (R$70, 2014), lobster cap from renner (R$30max, 2018)

Then there’s the problem that rich people have been saying young, poor and basically working people should die left and right these days. And we have to work for them? Kiss the ground they walk on? Be thankful for the scraps from their table? What the fuck?

No wonder my generation is trying to make money selling foot pics instead of getting a job where they will be treated as a disposable part in a machine that doesn’t care if they die. Have you seen job applications lately? It’s insane, you go looking for a receptionist job and they want you to have 5 years of experience. And then they treat you with no respect for a salary that won’t even let you move out of your parents’ house.

We have all the right to be confused and depressed and anxious you know? Look at the mess they put us in.

Anyway, how old are you guys and how are you coping with the collapse of modern society?

Why a Blog

I'm gonna be pretty straight-forward with it, I have a terrible relationship with Instagram. I just think it's bad, for your life, and for your head, the algorithm is just fucking mean. I even wrote an essay about it back in 2017, it's pretty bad though, but I was distracted so I didn't have the time and will to write something better, Ana if you ever read this, I'm sorry, I was in love.

I think as a society we are addicted to dopamine because of social media and it's starting to be really, really bad for us to the point our attention span is ridiculously short and we can't really retain information the way we used to, there's so much of it being fed to us through our news feeds that we just don't really care anymore, content is being made and thrown away by the second and it can't be healthy, having to synthesize content to the point of seconds of consumption is not normal, what happened to magazine articles and in-depth reviews and when did everything become Instagram stories?

I also don't like the way we treat content on Instagram, the way everybody wants to be an expert in digital marketing these days, I think it's exhausting, creatively empty, the way content has to be served and devoured in less than 5 seconds, otherwise, it becomes boring is just unsustainable and cruel, especially when talking about normal people with normal jobs, who are not models or work in advertising. And it's just not fun anymore, it used to be, I think, but I don't really remember it being as fun as Tumblr or Reddit because Instagram doesn't create a sense of community at least from my point of view. But it's not about pictures anymore, or connecting to your friends and people around the world, it's all about money, "influence" and ads.

I know people don't do that anymore but I really miss those days of coming home from school, turning on my laptop and checking Keiko Lynn's blog, or The Beauty Department, to see if there was anything new, maybe a complete review of Too Faced's new palette, or an outfit of the day. I miss keeping up with bloggers because it's so different from following influencers. Most of the time I can barely remember the @s of influencers, yet I can remember so many names and URLs from 10 years ago.

And everybody was so different because the algorithm didn't select the best images to show, so everybody was living their own truth and creating their own image, and now I keep seeing the same images and the same aesthetics and the same feed organization and messages and concepts over and over again, it bores me, it angers me because I know it could be better and I know it used to be better.

So I am trying something new that's actually quite old, I hope you like it and I hope you come over to talk to me sometimes.

ABOUT ME or something like that

thirsty me drinking soda after an Arctic Monkeys concert

Hi!

My name is Helena Tiemi Guimarães Mendes Suzuki, I am 22, my username is Manoel do Rio because it was my great-grandfather's name and they say he found a pot of gold and got rich.

I live in Brazil and the room you are going to see is my bedroom, I live with my parents, and the picture of Manhattan on the wall has been there since I was 10. I like to think I have a good archive of clothing for a 22-year-old, I haven't grown much since I was 12 so I never grew out of anything past that.

I got a degree in Fashion Desing earlier this year but I am a true normie at heart. I listen to a lot of The Killers and Arctic Monkeys, as well as other stuff that you will eventually see around here.

I predicted the comeback of the polo shirt and the rise of blush. I'm also allergic to cheese apparently? I don't know, it makes me itchy.

I'll be posting some very emotional reviews and critiques of things that I vvibe or I don't vvibe with, some stuff about fashion as well and thoughts in general. Also a lot of dancing, not necessarily good dancing, just vvibing you know?

I hope you enjoy this blog!