There is an unspoken cultural shift that occurs every time Fall rolls around. For the other eleven months of the year, we go out of our way to avoid being labelled basic or cheugy, but as soon as the temperature drops below 80 and Michael Jackson and Rockwell start singing, all bets are off. Suddenly, we’re digging out our chunky sweaters, spending an unreasonable amount of money on pumpkin-flavored beverages, and planning our annual trip to a pumpkin patch.
Perhaps the most obvious example of our fall-induced delusion is the annual return of pumpkin spice. As soon as September hits, most of us are sprinting to the nearest Starbucks to get our hands on one. Pumpkin spice candles, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, a few products that never needed to be pumpkin-flavored in the first place, and my personal favorite: a chai latte with pumpkin cream cold foam. The same people who would roll their eyes at a Live, Laugh, Love sign in July (me) are decorating their apartments with various pumpkins and cinnamon-scented brooms from Schnucks.
Fall is also the one time of year when we decide as a population that being a grown adult is somewhat optional. Throughout the year, certain people (not me) convince themselves that they’ve outgrown childhood traditions, only to turn right around and spend October rewatching Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We eagerly anticipate Halloween parties, coordinate costumes with our friends months in advance, and willingly cough up unknown amounts of money to wander around a pumpkin patch and get itchy and dusty on a hayride. Activities that might otherwise be considered childish or trivial suddenly become the highlight of our calendars. There’s something undeniably comforting about revisiting the movies, traditions, and experiences that made childhood so exciting. Not to say that adulthood is without its fun, but fall brings out a different side of people that you only really see in December, and most people don’t dress up as their favorite Star Wars character for Christmas…just saying!
For the majority of the year, we rarely give the leaves on the trees a second thought. They’re simply part of the background, something we pass by on our way to class, work, or wherever else we’re rushing off to. But the second those leaves begin turning shades of burnt orange, golden yellow, and deep red, we’re all amateur nature photographers. We’re taking the long way to class just to walk beneath the changing trees, rolling down our car windows to admire the foliage, and stopping mid-hot-girl-walk to take pictures of a particularly pretty tree. I know every year I wait for my grandmother to tell me the classic “Let’s go on a little drive to see all of the changing leaves.” It’s become a staple in my fall family traditions, as simple as it may be. The same sidewalks we’ve mindlessly walked down all semester suddenly become scenic routes, and a drive that would normally take 10 minutes somehow turns into a 20-minute detour.
And let’s talk about the fall aesthetic. For a generation that spends the majority of the year insisting that the clean girl, effortless style is the ultimate goal, we sure do put a lot of effort into looking effortlessly autumnal. Every outfit needs to consist of some combination of oversized sweaters, UGG boots, wide-leg jeans, and a coffee cup strategically placed in hand. Burgundy, burnt orange, and brown paired with tan Frye boots dominate our closets. Every weekend requires a trip to a pumpkin patch or farmers market with the perfectly poised pumpkin covering your face. Our camera rolls become a carefully curated collection of golden leaves, pumpkin-flavored drinks, and pictures of us pretending not to notice the camera. We recreate Pinterest boards we’ve been saving since middle school.
But maybe that’s the entire point. In a culture that constantly encourages us to be unique, productive, clean-girl, and perpetually self-improving, fall offers a rare opportunity to embrace the familiar and mundane without overthinking it. We don’t need to reinvent the pumpkin patch, discover an entirely new fall aesthetic, or find an obscure campy Halloween movie to prove we’re different. It’s enough to enjoy the same traditions as everyone else simply because they make us happy. Especially in college, where so much of our time is dedicated to classes, exams, internships, and figuring out the rest of our lives, there’s something so incredibly freeing about giving ourselves permission to be a little ridiculous. We can be ambitious and responsible while still getting excited about carving pumpkins or watching the Sanderson sisters turn to dust for the fifteenth time.
So, this fall, I’m officially retiring my fear of being cringe. I’ll be ordering the pumpkin spice chai latte at least three times a week (RIP my bank account), wearing the oversized sweater even if it’s still ninety degrees out, taking the overly posed pumpkin patch pictures, and listening to Thriller and Somebody’s Watching Me over and over and over again. Because if there’s one thing autumn reminds us, it’s that enjoying something cliché doesn’t make you boring. If anything, maybe the real cliché is spending so much time worrying about whether we’re too basic to enjoy the things that make us happy. To be cliché is to be free, and if that means becoming the very millennial stereotype we spent the rest of the year mocking, then so be it. After all, it’s only October once a year.