brat, interrupted

my contribution to the brat/summer substack personal essay archive

I started rewatching Jersey Shore a few weeks ago. The Jersey Shore cast, and New Jerseyans in general, don’t get enough credit for being style icons of the indie sleaze era. I never realized how much of New Jersey is in me until I started rewatching the show. I’m a proud Jersey girl even if I’m not from the shore and if growing up across the river from Manhattan was a huge part of my personality for a long time.

Watching the Jersey Shore cast go clubbing in their Ed Hardy, Von Dutch, neon, sleazy outfits, and listening to brat on repeat for the past week has nurtured a longing in me for the club, for the beach, for being insanely tan, sloppy, and embracing the chaos that comes with the territory of being in your twenties. I want to do backflips at the club with my panty out like Snooki. I want to wear black and lime green and feel euphoric and feral when the DJ plays a 365 mix. I probably won’t make it to any clubs this summer because while I’m proud of my ability to do things normally done in groups, alone, I think I draw the line at going to the club by myself, and I’m not sure I’ll make friends in time to party this summer.

I’ve never been one to let my loneliness stop me from at least achieving the aesthetic of the life I want, so I suggested to my family that we go to the beach after my little brother’s high school graduation. We’d celebrate the occasion in a way that honored both my Latin family traditions and my underlying desire of wanting to begin a summer well spent on the Jersey shore; laying under the sun on a beach somewhere, the scent of Banana Boat tanning oil in the air. My sixty-year-old Colombian dad couldn’t possibly understand the significance of brat, indie sleaze, and Jersey shore in the same way a girlfriend would (I mean whose dad could?), but he at least understands the I’ve been out on that open road feeling that comes with tanning on the Jersey shore. In many ways, he is so babygirl. He actually, probably, definitely romanticizes Americana more than I do.

I’ve been avoiding family beach outings since last summer because I’ve been avoiding any situation where my mom might see the tattoo on my side. But I was feeling bratty; prepared to pretend like the vitriolic insults my mother hurls my way when I do something she doesn’t like don’t hurt at all. I’m so brat, I do what I want and I don’t fear judgment! When we got to the beach, I made sure my mother was only ever standing on the right side of my body so my tattoo would never be in her line of vision. Laying on my blanket on the sand, my looped listening to of brat landed on “Apple” again, and it suddenly became part of the soundtrack to whatever coming-of-age-but-in-your-mid-twenties-and-moved-back-in-with-your-immigrant-parents-a-year-ago-and-somehow-they’ve-become-the-only-people-you-hang-out-with-now-even-though-they-still-dont-get-you-and-you’re-still-trying-to-understand-them-even-after-you-moved-back-to-latin-america-to-try-and-figure-them-out movie I’m living in right now.

nnatashalopez

A post shared by @nnatashalopez

I guess the apple don't fall far from the tree
'Cause I've been looking at you so long
Now I only see me
I wanna throw the apple into the sky
Feels like you never understand me
So I just wanna drive to the airport

Yeah, you get it Charli. They didn’t understand me and so I DID drive to the airport! I am my father’s daughter and community and connection mean everything to me, but why does it feel more natural to be alone? Does not falling far from the apple tree always mean your dad’s Aquarius sun becomes your Aquarius moon? Okay let me take some selfies in this Y2K inspired bikini.

I think the apple's rotten right to the core
From all the things passed down
From all the apples coming before
I split the apple down symmetrical lines
And what I find is kinda scary
Makes me just wanna drive

The critical voice in my head is my mother and they’re the cruelest voices I’ve ever heard. I ran from home just like my dad did, but somehow he never went back and… here I am… on the Jersey shore with my parents who so don’t get me when I should be having a fucking brat summer in the clubs with friends who DO get me! But I don’t have any friends cause the ones I had were my rotten apples too, in a way. I’m gonna take a walk across the edge of the water.

I’ve come to terms with what a brat summer will look like for me. The release of the album and its rabid reception, I’d say, marks indie sleaze revival’s shift into full gear, which I’ve been waiting for since I just barely missed the era when my mom didn’t let my 10-year-old self act and dress all Skins UK. It’ll look like what I wore to the beach with my parents (lol) and feel second nature to my wardrobe and dressing rituals; vintage pieces with bold ironic text printed on them, a skimpy bikini, bloomer shorts, the thrifted band tees I’ve been collecting since age twelve, natural mascara that smudges way too easily, the frizzy hair I inherited from my mother, and brat (lime) green everywhere.

But the experience of my brat summer won’t be the when I go to the club I wanna hear those club classics, club classics, club, club classics side of brat because I’m being realistic when I say I probably won’t see the inside of a club this summer. It’s more like the “Apple” reckoning with who your parents are and the inevitability of being like them in some way side. I’ll have my Jersey Shore summer one way or another even if it’s just me and my dad being sad and lonely on the beach together. That’s my brat. It’s also the “The girl, so confusing version with lorde” side where I make peace with my past complicated female friendships and maybe try to make new ones that better align with who I am now (???)

If I don’t make it to the club, I’ll at least embrace the mess that is a woman in her mid-twenties and keep making mistakes and solo-documenting my youth. If I do make it, I’ll probably dissociate on the dancefloor and start thinking about my parents as I do at most social functions or when I take psychedelics, anyway. It’s all the same to a brat. Here’s how I think my brat summer will end up taking form: 

• forcing my parents to listen to brat and stfu about my tattoos when we go to the beach together

• friendless for the natural way friendships drift apart, but open to making time for meeting new ones

• indulge in all that I can, I am a Leo and a hedonist after all

• sober except for the occasional joint, gummy, and glass(es) of wine

• coming to terms with (and romanticizing) being from New Jersey

• writing and getting creative with other brats <333

• sweating it out; either by dancing, tanning, or running in the unbearable heat

• dressing the part of the sleazy icon I dreamed of being when I was 12 on Tumblr reblogging photos of Cory Kennedy, even if it’s just for a photo my little sister takes of me on my birthday

• keep doing things alone so I don’t regret not doing them just because there was no one to do them with (except go to the club)

Throughout summer 2024, brat will be played in clubs across the world, an unprecedented amount of people will get lower back tattoos, and beautiful, drunk, happy club kids will be photographed on digital cameras with their friends. Brat will also be played in the headphones of introverted, contemplative, thought daughters who prefer to indulge in solo bottles of wine and emptying a pen’s ink into their diary after a fucked up conversation with someone. It’s all brat, hedonism is finally hot again, and we have Charli xcx to thank for it.