Born in 2008

A night at the Farmingdale fair

Hi Style Stars, today I’m back with perhaps my most American Style American Style yet. I missed you all.

In October, I traveled east on the Long Island Rail Road to go to the Farmingdale fair. Farmingdale is the town where my college roommate grew up, and the first time I visited her family home at the end of our freshman year was the first time I saw a real American suburb. The suburbs where I came from weren’t like this — they were separated by highways and busy roads where people stared at you if you walked on the sidewalk. In Farmingdale, you could walk to the train station and get to New York City in an hour or you could walk to Main Street and get a slice of pizza or a bagel with a few inches of cream cheese. This was all normal. The houses in Dana’s neighborhood looked like the one on the American Football album cover, all connected by shared green lawns with white picket fences and trees that weren’t born yesterday and worn concrete paths that led to bagels and the train station (the actual first planned American suburb, Levittown, is just three miles away).

The air tonight is crisp, right for the fair, which is mostly attended by teenagers and kids a few years younger. The girls wear sweatpants (wide leg, low waist) with tank tops and sweaters that hang off one shoulder. The boys wear hoodies and gather in packs like nematodes in SpongeBob, broccoli haircuts bobbing. Everyone is in the going out version of their pajamas, which captures the energy here. It’s a big event, but you have to keep casual because you’re thirteen and that’s how it works.

Erin and her friends are on their way to a house party tonight — they’re seniors and have grown out of the fair as their weekend highlight. The girls’ makeup is totally Hailey Bieber, peachy-pink cheeks glow, lashes separated. The boys are swagged out in earrings and trendy t-shirts, courtesy of Vinny, who’s got a great New York accent and the charm of an ‘80s movie boy. As we take photos, the girls fret a little about how to appear natural, and if they should smile or look at the camera. Vinny cracks jokes the whole time and knows how to pose like Justin Bieber.

Both boys and all three girls are involved in student government, and as far as I can tell, none of them are dating. We talk about football and college. They tell me that the rivalry between Farmingdale and Massapequa, the town over, is one of the biggest in New York state. The annual football game gets so heated that it’s now held at noon on Saturdays — the traditional Friday night time-slot was too conducive to violence.

Ive, who speaks quietly and has the stoicism of a lifelong student athlete, is a safety on the team’s defense. He picked up football this year for fun, but he’s played baseball his whole life. He’s already committed to play shortstop at a private college, where he plans to major in Biology so that one day he can become a physical therapist back here in Farmingdale.

Everyone else is undecided. Grace, who works after school at Ralph’s Famous Italian Ices and a smoothie and acaii bowl shop called SoBol, isn’t sure if she wants to live at home for her first year or go away. “I love being home. I’m a homebody,” she says.

Gianna, on the other hand, knows she wants to leave Long Island, and has made a list of small schools in states nearby. For years she thought she wanted to play soccer in college, but her priorities changed as the time to decide closed in: “I kind of just got over like, the big hump of deciding that that’s not what I want my whole life to be about. I want to be a teacher. So I definitely know that I want to go for Education.”

Erin, who has clear blue eyes and cheeks so rosy the pink shoots down her face, is interested in schools with good equestrian programs. Horses are her life — she rides hunter-jumper competitively and works at the barn every day after school, in addition to working as the school’s sports photographer.

I ask Vinny what his plans are.

“I’m not really a big school guy,” he says.

“So I’m still torn. I might go get my Liberal Arts at Nassau [Community College].

I’m not gonna make my mom pay thousands of dollars for me to go away and I hate it and skip. And if that doesn’t work out then I’m just gonna go right into the trade. My dad’s in the Union so I’ll always have my in there.”

“What trade?” I ask.

“Electrical.

I’m not gonna just take the easy way out though. My dad’s a higher-up in the Union. He works in the city. He’s a three [the highest tier of electrician], so it’s like, that’s the easy way out, if I want a job immediately and to make money.

But I don’t think I’m gonna do that. I think I’m gonna at least try and not take the easy way out and see if I like it and get my Liberal Arts.”

The girls are stressed about the college essay. “The SATs, you don’t have to send them in for some colleges. So, I’m like, okay, it’s fine. But like, the college essay, I’ve had to change it up,” explains Gianna. “I’m still not finished with mine. My deadline is next week. And it’s because some teachers either love it or hate it and like, they completely change it.”

When I was in school in the 2010s, the college essay, submitted via a single application to multiple schools, was becoming a bigger deal, but teachers playing a significant role in the writing process wasn’t the norm. The group says it is now.

“We have two English teachers at our school,” Vinny says, marking them as their favorite advisers.

“They’re the best,” Erin adds.

“They’re just one of us. They’re like big kids,” Vinny concludes.

I can tell Vinny is into fashion. I ask him about it. “I don’t even know,” he says. “I was just tired of dressing like everyone else. I try to stick out and be my own person.”

He says that the typical style on Long Island is athletic-wear from school: Farmingdale Football t-shirts or Massapequa sweatpants. “They all kind of dress the same.”

“I used to think a lot about what people thought about me. I learned that in high school you only live once, so you might as well do it big and be yourself.”

Later, Vinny shows me a picture of his car, an electric blue Dodge Charger, on his phone’s lockscreen. It’s his pride and joy. His sister’s boyfriend, who just graduated from the police academy as a state trooper, helped him get it. It’s currently in the shop for a reason I can’t repeat here (Vinny didn’t do anything illegal or wrong).

It’s Ive’s seventeenth birthday (he says he already feels older) and he’s getting restless, ready to go to the house party. The group heads off. Later, I catch them by the fried Oreo booth. They’re not too old for the fair yet.

(Please read to the end to meet Jack, who I think should be famous.)

Chloe, Carmilla, Brooke and Brianna

Age: All 16

Occupation: High school

Favorite thing about the fair: Seeing everyone from school

(They say the fair was more fun in middle school when everyone was friends with each other.)

Andrea, Maddie and Gabbie

Age: 18, 17 and 18

Occupation: High school

Favorite thing about the fair: Walking around

Bella, London, Isabel and Molly

Age: All 17

Occupation: High school

Favorite thing about the fair: Deep fried Oreos

Francesca and Zion

Age: Both 14

Occupation: High school

Favorite thing about the fair: The boat ride

Jack

Age: 17

Occupation: High school

Favorite thing about the fair: The rides

Jack is special. I know it from the minute I see him. He has the face of an angel and talks like the only white kid on the block. When I ask him to tell me about his outfit, he banters back, “Ooh, I like this question!”

“Well, it’s, um, I mean, I don’t know,” he says in a Soundcloud accent, slow but but full of life.

“It’s based off shit that I listen to. Just like, influence. Shit like that.”

He says he’s into lesser known rap. Like 2hollis? “That’s even too high [up the iceberg] for me. If you look up zayguapkid, you’ll understand me.”

He talks me through his outfit.

“This hoodie is a Revenge hoodie. You know how XXX[Tentacion] used to wear that.”

“I have two belts on,” he says gleefully, like a little kid showing off.

His jeans and bag are True Religion. “The Forces are hair, they’re literally hair,” he says, instructing me to bend down and feel the glossy black calf-hair of his Nike Air Force 1s.

Belt = $47

Jeans = $40

Chain = $18

Watch = $75

Ring = $45

Shoes = $120

After the fair is over and we have some dinner, Dana and I walk around trying to find cigarettes. All the gas stations are closed early. Jack walks by us holding hands with a short Latina girl.

He doesn’t notice us, but we run into him again while waiting to cross the road at a big intersection. He’s guarded when I say hi, but his face cracks open into a smile when he realizes we met earlier.

The blinking sign to cross the street never comes, but Jack leads us across six lanes toward the only open gas station in town. Before we make it there, he’s affectionately catcalled by a young man passing by on the sidewalk. He’s a total normie, wearing a Rangers hockey jersey on his way back from the match in the city. He compliments Jack’s style and says he looks like Nettspend.

Under the big gas station lights, Jack asks for a cigarette and starts telling me about his life. He had a twin who died when he was little and he thinks his mom is too uptight. He’s got a crush on the girl we saw him walking with earlier, but thinks she shaded him on Instagram Stories based on the name of the Travis Scott, or maybe it was Carti, song she posted with a mirror pic. As he shows me the Story on his phone, his screen lights up with a text. It’s from her. She regrets going home, she says in all lowercase, she really liked being with him tonight.

Jack says his ex-girlfriend is crazy. He bought her some over-the-counter birth control but she didn’t take it.

“Bruh, she tried to babytrap me.”

Jack doesn’t know what he’s going to do after he graduates from high school next year. He’s thought about fashion school in the city, but isn’t sure that he has the grades. I tell him I can see him modeling. Later, I text the casting director Emma Matell pictures of Jack. I want him to be famous. I tell him about Noah Dillon, the patron saint of boys looking for meaning in clothes and music.

A guy walks up to the gas station in huge tripp pants with bullet casings threaded to the ends of his braids. Jack tells him he likes his outfit and they get to talking, immediately connected by a shared love of fashion and darkness. He asks me to take photos of them together on his phone. I see one on Instagram later.

It’s late. I hand Jack three cigarettes for his walk home. He can’t believe it. I believe in him.

Photography by Dana Lovasz