If you’ve lived in Boulder for long enough, you’ve probably heard of “The Boulder Bubble.” The title represents Boulder for what it largely is: a privileged town with a particular population of people seemingly immune to systemic hardship. Exorbitant rent prices are a shoulder-shrug for many students whose parents take care of the bill, out-of-state tuition is an eye-roll but not a problem, ski passes and monthly party buses to Red Rocks seem like no big deal, and luxury designer products abound. I can’t make my way across campus without coming across a Cartier Love bracelet, head-to-toe Lululemon, or my personal pet peeve, the Goyard tote bag.
I cannot help but feel resentment burn through me when I see the Goyard tote. If I could have luxury items, trust me, I would. I am no better than anyone else; I crave emblematic luxury and consumerist waste like any other. The only difference is that I can’t afford it — and I am bitterly jealous.Â
I have a stylish classmate that I have been in awe of since the start of the semester. She’s chic, down-to-earth, smart and put together, a cool girl if you will. Then one day she showed up to class with a Goyard tote bag. Ridiculously, I felt betrayed. Like, I trusted you, and now here you are with this symbolic piece of plastic that I can’t help but hate you for.
To make things abundantly clear: there’s nothing wrong with owning a Goyard tote, or anything else luxury-branded, for that matter. The women who I see touting these items about are often great people, smart, caring, funny, kind, adventurous — they’re just people. The problem isn’t them, or even that silly tote bag. The problem is that I feel less than.
I see these young women and I know that they walk home to their apartments on The Hill after class and allow themselves to genuinely decompress, to grab a coffee at Starbucks, to go for a night on the town, and they don’t have to worry about anything beyond a text from their parents to cool it on the credit card. They don’t worry about making rent, buying groceries, or what happens after graduation financially. They don’t worry about affording next semester’s tuition, or how their sorority sisters will abandon them when they can’t afford to pay dues anymore. They get to live freely and luxuriously.
This envy I feel represents something more, I think — a sense of social isolation, like I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be, somewhere not designed for people like me. I can’t afford a bag that costs over $2,000 because I can’t even afford to meet my basic needs without government assistance. In truth, this bites at a longstanding wound. I once had money, and now I don’t. My family once took care of me, and now they don’t. I know how good it feels to focus on school without having to work two jobs. And now I don’t get to have that, and it stings. I want so badly to have that stupid fucking tote bag, some semblance of the life that I know now I’ll have to spend a long time building up for myself.
It’s not Boulder’s fault that it’s a bubble, but it is probably my fault for hating it. To the Boulder girlies with a Goyard tote: I see you, I love you, I fear you… and please connect with me on LinkedIn.Â