Deputy Editor Youngweon Lee pens an ode to the Columbia Sadgirl.
This post is for you, you Birkenstock-and-vintage-mom-jeans-wearing, sleep-deprived, disillusioned, Sappho-loving, probably-pseudo-literary Columbia Sadgirl.
It’s a shoutout to every girl at Columbia who is Sad, with a capital S. Who identifies herself as a Sadgirl in whatever shape or form.
It doesn’t matter how Sad you are, whether you are Sad for the few seconds it takes you to read this shitpost or chronically Sad, or how superficially or deeply Sad you are. No matter how violently Sad or serenely Sad. It’s an all-inclusive lifestyle.
You might even be Sad for the aesthetic. It’s okay. Bwog loves you. Relish the melancholy. Make art out of it or something, if you want. Drink a cup of tea with lots of milk and sugar. Take a Polaroid selfie.
Take a trip downtown tonight, and listen to New York by St. Vincent on 1st Avenue. Kiss a stranger at a bar. That’s Sadgirl Culture. Or don’t, if you don’t want. Stay in bed, if you prefer. Have some brie and crackers with a bottle of Stella cider. That’s also Sadgirl Culture. It’s Friday night. Take a break, inhale, exhale. Be Sad, but not like bad Sad. Just a lil blue. Blue is a good color to be.
And remember: you are beautiful, you are loved.
Here is a Sappho fragment for you:
οὐ γὰρ θέμις ἐν μοισοπόλων δόμωι
θρῆνον ἔμμεν᾽ <…> οὔ κ’ ἄμμι πρέποι τάδε
(translation by Anne Carson):
For it is not fitting in a house of the muses that there be lament
this would not become us
kitty kitty via Finn Klauber