For once, I am ahead of the trends
When my friend recently messaged to ask what I was doing, I sent her a selfie. It was about 7pm on a Friday and, as much as I like to think she expected a photo of me out on the town, she knew damn well she wasn’t getting one.
I was, in fact, lying on the couch and took the picture from just below my chin.
In shot was a plate of food balanced on my chest, a bit of butter on my top and a red wine stain beneath my lower lip. ‘‘Goblining,’’ I captioned it.
While nobody could describe me as a trendsetter, I have been long ahead of the ‘‘goblin mode’’ movement that’s all over social media right now.
The term first appeared online years ago as a backlash to those perfect posts by perfect people, then hit its straps once it was adopted to describe the slovenly lifestyle encouraged by the pandemic.
Weeks and months of mandatory home life allowed us to release our inner slobs and, once the lockdowns lifted, we not only didn’t rein them back in, we’ve aspired to become ever more lax.
Going goblin is to reject any personal or societal expectations of doing anything other than living at our most basic.
It’s a shirking of any pressure to groom, go out or get motivated.
It’s wearing the same clothes we wore the day before, watching endless TV, ordering Uber even when the pantry’s full, and refusing to behave like anything other than the laggards our parents raised us not to be.
Why? Because the pandemic has taught us we should live authentically.
And being a goblin feels good. There’s never been anything particularly inner about my inner slob, and though I’ve only just learned the term I’ve unabashedly gone goblin most my life.
I eat straight from the pot, pad to the shops in slippers, and dress like Winnie the Pooh about the house.
I’ll drink coke from a mug rather than wash a glass, and now my clothes are on trend for quite possibly the first time in my life.
Tomato sauce slopped on my hoody? Tick. Mismatched socks? Roger. Holes in my shoes? Bloody oath.
The only other type of sartorial statement I’ve ever made was in college, upon discovering the best way to break the rules was by sticking to them.
While the dress code specified the exact tone of brown and yellow our scarves had to be, it didn’t stipulate the length, so I got my nana to knit one that was, I kid you not, about 10 feet long.
I’d wrap its lengths around me then skulk in classrooms looking like a melted pineapple lump and driving teachers spare. The scarf was a literal interpretation of the regulations and they couldn’t do a thing about it.
Anyway, here I am, a goblin. But here’s the thing: while going goblin is a lifestyle choice that can be ditched at will, it’s also a pretty good description of selfcare.
The state of mental health in New Zealand has become a shadow pandemic. Years of
Covid and the state of the world in general has left us all out of cope, and while going goblin won’t cure us, we shouldn’t feel guilty if it makes us feel a bit better.
So if all you can manage is to eat straight from the pot, or shrug on yesterday’s clothes, then that’s good enough. Just give yourself a break, because a bit of giving up to keep carrying on isn’t about being a slob, it’s about getting through.
That’ll do, goblin, that’ll do.