I Was Only Her Friend So She Could 'Save Me': A Chipster Story and Fashion Study

Readers, thanks for subscribing and being here! <33 Two things: 1. I will be taking the month of September off to focus on another writing project. 2. If you’re interested in makeup counters and IRL beauty shopping, read my latest piece at Byrdie.

I got a cross necklace from an unexpected huge tub of Claire’s and Icing gifts from my mom’s brother and his crazy second wife one Christmas. I don’t know where they got the money, but I remember it vividly because it was an ungodly amount of items. My sister got the same box. It was full of jewelry, nail polish, makeup, and we each got a fake diamond cross necklace. Most Christmases we didn’t receive gifts from them.

I could tell my mom was slightly upset with the necklace gift. My parents were atheists, which was very edgy in the 2000s in the Bible Belt! Neighbors thought we were Satanists because my dad brewed beer in the garage with the door open. The whole street smelled like hops and kids were told not to play with us by their parents.

To fit in in my elementary school, I finally had a cross necklace! On the playground girls would sit in a circle and ask everyone which church they went to and if they were saved by Jesus Christ—I would feel left out but now I wouldn’t. No one bullied me specifically; only a few girls told me I was going to hell. But now I had a cross necklace! I could fit in. I would stash the cross necklace in my backpack and put it on on the bus.

buy me a pornstar martini as a lil tip!

I wore it proudly and made up a name of a church I attended. I slept over at a friend‘s house and went to church with her the next day. I pretended like I knew the songs and I gave everyone a Christian Handshake. I went to another sleepover where a friend’s dad was a pastor in their garage with a cut out of George W. Bush. They worshiped him alongside JC. Their dad said the Evangelical churches around here were now too modern. At the dinner table the dad told everyone that Al Gore raped his own daughters. I was in elementary school. I didn’t know what that meant but I knew it was something bad.

I wore the cross necklace for a while but quickly stopped. Later my aunt died in a meth lab explosion. There was nothing religious about her funeral, so I wondered why I received the gift. I assumed it was just so embedded in everyone that cross necklaces were something to be handed out like candy. I did grow up in Missouri after all!!! I had a chip on my shoulder about Christianity that comes and goes with how much I am around it.

When I was in middle school, my friend dated a 21 year-old wigger who would sneak into her basement window at night. He would buy us alcohol and cartons of cigarettes, in exchange for making out with my friend and hanging around us—apparently he had escaped some kind of religious cult and was living with his cousin nearby. He would occasionally fight people for fun, and sometimes he was paid to do so. My high school friends in a screamo band learned that we had access to alcohol, so we went to one of their practices at a church that held metal shows on the weekends. We took the band in my older friend’s car to the gas station. One of the band members that I thought was really hot and I wanted to make out with stared at all of us and asked:

Have you accepted Jesus Christ into your heart?

My friends and I couldn’t help but laugh. We were not part of the Christian community in my town, we were the “outcasts” (aka “troubled” teens non-chruch goers probably had a cigarette on them, hung out at another “third space” which was the only tattoo shop in town, etc). I thought they were the outcasts too, we were all a bunch of misfits wearing various band T-shirts like “suicidal tendencies” and even edgier “eye hate god” paired with so much hairspray you could light a fire in the car would blow up, + so much black eyeliner that we would go through it weekly. Wait, they were Christian too? How didn’t we all like wanna rebel !!!!???? I was too young to realize that most of my scene was very Christian. We did go to shows in churches after all!

I met a much older man at Starbucks when I was in high school. Sidenote, Starbucks was the place to hang out. For the price of a coffee drink, or knowing one of the workers who would give you a free one, or just simply loitering for free—you could sit outside on the patio and smoke cigarettes and listen to whiny white men guitar players for hours with traditional American tattoos and those little ass beanies falling off their heads, all day. Even after they closed those horny guys would be there!! But not just any Starbucks, but this specific Starbucks in my town. People drove even an hour away just to come hang out at my Starbucks. I would often drive by just to see who was there, and someone was always there I knew.

I met my old boyfriend (that’s what I referred to him since time has passed) at that very Starbucks. I was about to graduate from high school and he lied to his friends about my age. He took me places: some far, some just 45 minutes into the city to house parties and house shows, and even occasionally snuck me into dive bars. I won’t even lie, I had a great summer with him. I was his date to multiple weddings, as people his age were getting married, and we did all the things that hipster couples did—warehouse dance parties all night, French press coffees all day, and eat at vegan restaurants. I got to experience the full hipster (Christian) lifestyle, minus the youth group and church.

At this point in my life, I was an outspoken atheist. I didn’t bother trying to fit in anymore with a cross necklace like I did an elementary school, I enjoyed being edgy in the Bible Belt!! When we broke up he told me over the phone that he was going to start bringing me to his church and planned on convincing me to be “born again”. He also pictured us getting married within the year. Yikes!!! My friends were disappointed that I broke up with him because he was hot and fun.

I didn’t even know that he was a Christian? How could I have missed that? But a few months later when I saw his indie-ish screamo band play a show, I realized I never listened to the lyrics. He was talking about Jesus. Not about me!!!! Not about another hot girl he dated. Jesus!!! I was so confused, but I probably just never paid attention to begin with. Like I never knew that a girl I was friends with at the time was actually extremely religious and her boyfriend was studying to become a pastor. I started to wonder if I was a true Aquarius, just existing in outer space in my own mind. I didn’t mind what religion people were, but I didn’t want to have to keep saying nope I’m good thanks! when they got to that point in our friendship when they would ask me every Sunday to go to their church.

The lead singer of Flyleaf followed my fashion blog back in the day. I remember when she commented and I was so excited!!! I loved her song “All Around Me”. I thought it was such a great song about her boyfriend. Little did I know that it was a song about Jesus Christ! Everywhere I looked there was a hipster Christian. I was trapped. I started to just accept it as a way of life because I didn’t know anything different. They owned the coffee shops and they smoked cigarettes and they had fashion blogs and even better Instagrams. I made my way into the punk scene where absolutely no one was a Chipster and made fun of them constantly. I felt weird because everyone I knew was a Chipster, but also relieved. But I missed my Chipster friends because they were so nice and boring, my punk friends were so rowdy and intense. I was a girl torn between two silly worlds!!!!

I befriended a group of girls in college who all lived at a beautiful house that one of the Dad’s owned. He bought the house so that the girls could live in it, by the urban campus that I attended. I loved being around them. I always had friends, but I never had a huge group of girlfriends. We would have sleepovers. We would try out makeup tutorials and drink too much wine and smoke cigarettes and sometimes go dancing. We would travel together and they knew everyone and they had so many friends. I was jealous and wondered why atheists didn’t have as many friends as the Chipsters did. Did I need religion to have a strong group of friends that lasts throughout the ages? I loved my other friends, reckless and wild punks of all walks of life, but I liked how easy and simple it was with these girls. We just thrifted, drank coffee, no one had any problems or got too fucked up, and everyone was smilely and happy!! It must have been JC!! Because damn, they were so nice all the time. I wondered if my parents should have been Christians all along, maybe I would have had some normal and boring overly happy friends growing up.

I pondered if I should become a full Chipster.

The closest friend of mine in that group started dating a new Chipster guy. Only two weeks into dating they were already arguing. He was rude. He was a little older. She would talk about how much she loved him and everyone listened except for me. One night while all the girls in the house for one of our crafting nights, she told us she just knewwww he was going to propose.

Immediately, I started laughing. You guys have only been dating for a few months, I said. And most of the time she was crying in her room that she shared with three other girls. She couldn’t even legally drink alcohol. I was the only one laughing. She stared at me and almost started crying and I felt bad but didn’t care enough to stfu. I reminded her that #1 we are young number #2 you haven’t been together very long #3 you can’t even drink alcohol yet. Don’t you wanna have alcohol at your wedding? I laughed and no one else did.

They had a dry wedding and he did propose a week later.

At her bachelorette party, I was the one that caused the trouble. I bought a bunch of Mad Dog and decorated it with stickers and made her chug half of one (in which she vomited outside). The wedding was like cheaper Kinfolk Mag come to life. I was so irresponsible at this time I couldn’t even get to the church service on time. I wondered how she was responsible enough to make the decision to get married. I was a complete idiot mess and my friend was being an adult and getting married. Is this what JC did to people, help them grow up??

After the wedding, I didn’t understand our friendship anymore. She was now a wife, literally calling herself as that as a title. She didn’t finish college. I watched the other girls from the house pair off with men who would propose to them within the year. Our time as girls in their early 20s only lasted a few years, they were all off to marriage and soon motherhood.

My closest Chipster friend came over to my apartment one day for only 30 minutes and we shared a cigarette out my window. She gave me a huge hug out of nowhere and asked me if I would get in the car with her and come to her church. I stared at her. I reminded her that I am agnostic, at this time in my life I had mellowed out from my hardcore edgiest cringe phase of atheism. But I did not want to attend church, no thanks! We’ve had this discussion before, and I thought she understood that. I never saw her again after that. We were friends for years and it just ended. It ended pretty much the same with all the other girls—an invite to church like it was a last hail mary for our friendship, I said no, we never talked again.

Becoming friends with people who were transplants and moving around myself, I realized my experience was regional. Many people did not grow up with a plethora of Christian hipsters like I did. I spent so much of my childhood, teenage, and early 20s thinking it was just standard to have to explain why you didn’t belong to a church or want to attend crafting Bible study at a Chipster’s house.

As we know evil doesn’t die, it evolves. I wonder what it will be next since the Tradwife era is ending. I have a few guesses, but that’s for later!!! <333

buy me a pornstar martini as a lil tip!

How I Dodged the Crunchy to Alt-Right Pipeline

·

Jun 25

If you’re new here, I took a non-fiction book out on submission last year that didn’t sell. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say that, I guess if you’re an editor or publicist look away from that line. You didn’t see it! Anyway, I wrote a chapter in my book/proposal about this topic. My post here is less censored, no citations, it’s more raw, and actuall…

Deleting Instagram Made Me Depressed, but this is Why You Should Do it Tomorrow

·

December 31, 2025

Me deleting my Instagram this year was a risky play with my mental health. I moved to a new state a little over a year ago, where I knew only a few college and childhood friends of my husband + an old friend of mine (one of those real activists that is learning Ham radio & is always doing something that makes you question to yourself

A to Z Guide to Make This Autumn Feel like 2010

·

October 8, 2025

It feels like everyone wants a 2010s fall this year. Hollister baby doll teas, Abercrombie and Fitch fur lined slightly puff coats, army green jackets (which were more 2016, but they started being seen around this time), tight flare, jeans, low rise everything, journals, messenger bags, and lattes once again are the accessories of the moment.