Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Beware of Trustafarians


UrbanDictionary.com defines trustafarians as the following:

a. a person who, in an act of rebellion has taken to smoking pot, pan-handling, and following grateful dead rip-off bands during the week, and then returning to his or her parent's cozy home in the suburbs during the weekend.

b. one who lives with poorer people in an attempt to gain credibility, or street-cred, while disguising the trust fund they actually live off


Living in the heart of downtown near the private college, Stanford University, there are pockets of these "Trustafarians" of both definitions. Other notable college towns that can find fellow Trustafarians are Boulder, Berkeley, NYU and many other high performing college towns. One of my favorite Stanford stories from my cousin May Allen is when a girl in one of her studio Art classes went missing from class for a few weeks only to be discovered in front of Longs Drugs and dating a bum that lived off of Uni. Ave.

When giving a tour of the local Palo Alto hot spots, I always give a disclaimer before we walk by the P.A. hot spot for the local Trustafarian gang, Pizza My Heart. Most of my visitors don't understand what I'm describing until they turn the corner and see the fire juggling, disheveled group of young hooligans finding their place in the world.

When doing a simple google image search "Pizza My Heart Palo Alto" you can see the notable human sized egg of computer parts. You can see some of these lovable Trustafarians loitering in the background. I find it quite interesting that the symbol of an egg made out of computer parts is a symbol of the beginning of the technology in the bay area (and arguably the world) and paradoxically the children of these inventors and creators have yet to find their place in the world.....maybe I'm not as different than them as I originally thought.

1 comment:

Shirin said...

I always wondered what those kids on Haight street were called...now I know! Thank you, May.