The rise of the normie dad shoe has been followed by the hatred of actual normies

Will the elite fashionistas change their sartorial choices to distance themselves from normies now?

In the late 2010’s something called “the dad shoe” became popular. What’s the dad shoe? Well, it is epitomized by New Balance sneakers. Kind of clunky, sort of ugly, with that I just don’t care what I look like, I’m in it for the comfort vibe.

But the people who were (and still are, for now) wearing them in Brooklyn and Silverlake and San Francisco do care what they look like. But they want to look like they don’t care. That became the hipster look.

Of course the I don’t care aura has always been part of the hipster gestalt, with their trucker caps and flannels and 1880s style unkempt butter-churner beards and their PBR in a can. But dad-style took it beyond the hippest of the hipster enclaves and to the regular stylish people in tier 2 cities everywhere! It was a full-on trend!

The super model set — led by the Hadid sisters — was wearing dad shoes. Then the luxury brands like Balenciaga starting making them. Then normie brands like New Balance started “collab-ing” with luxury brands like Loro Piana. Oh the irony!

Then came mom jeans and dad jeans and ironic vintage tees and the hipster normie “retro” look had ascended and mainstreamed in what felt like an instant.

At the heart of the unstylish style of mom and dad looks is the idea that all the wearer wants is comfort. They don’t care about looking fab. They have things to do! They cannot be encumbered by painful shoes and tight pants! They are normies, just like us.

But it’s fake. They are not. They are “styling” their retro looks with $500 sneakers as if to say, I don’t care about style. But it’s a pose. Obviously.

If you don’t care about style you don’t make videos on how to “style” dad jeans; and you don’t pair them with heels; and you don’t try to look like Gigi Hadid or Katie Holmes; and you have never heard of Balenciaga and you definitely don’t spend $900 for a pair of “collab” sneakers.

But everyone wanted to seem like a normie. That was cool. For a time.

And now, we see the rise — and revenge — of actual normies. They watch Rogan and UFC not MSNBC and Wimbledon. They like Top Gun Maverick and Nascar and they don’t think men can become women. And they voted straight up normie. They voted for Trump as a rejection of all that is elite and fake and most definitely not normie.

For all the aesthetic normie aspirations of the NY and LA set trying to desperately seem normal — stars, they’re just like us! — they hate the actual normies.

They are, in fact, telling their adoring fans to cut off friends and family who voted normie. They are saying things like They’re dumb, babe. They’re just dumb people.

They are saying that Trump voters are just too dumb to understand Project 2025 (which isn’t and never was Trump’s platform).

Or, there is Sunny Hostin of The View saying with a sneer that “uneducated white women” are to blame for failing to deliver Harris the Presidency. Those damn normie white women who didn’t go to college ruin everything!

And now, we have a whole host of non-normies fleeing X because they can’t stand being confronted with everyday people with everyday viewpoints that challenge their own elitist ones.

Will they stop wearing dad shoes and camo and cargo shorts and oversized vintage tees with ironic graphics on them?

I don’t know. But the contradiction is just too great to withstand scrutiny, pretending to be a normie while hating on them with the force of a cultist.

Then again, logic has not been the strong suit of these superficial, style driven “progressive” acolytes. They think men are women if they just say so; they think sex is non-binary while advocating vociferously for a binary construct with boys cutting off parts to “become” girls; they screech non-stop about the climate crisis while flying in their private planes to private conferences to combat it; they howl about structural racism for progressive brownie points while insisting on closed public schools during covid — with private schools being open — as a matter of “equity”; they harangue us me-too style about men’s sideways glances being assault but then insist we welcome actual autogynephilic fetishistic men into our private spaces or else we’re bigots.

So, will their style change to match their actual elitist views and disdain for normies? Or will their views change — exhibiting empathy and perhaps a willingness to listen to those regular folks they’ve aspired to look and dress like (only more expensively so) for the past 7 years?

Only time will tell. I’m voting for the style change. It’s easier than a personality change. And they prioritize superficiality and appearance above all else. I really don’t see that changing any time soon.