Biz Sherbert’s Young Americans: Meet Long Island Jack
· Vice
This column is from THE SELF-DESTRUCTION ISSUE of VICE magazine. Find it in a store near you, or get 4 issues each year sent straight to your door, by subscribing.
As she wanders North America writing her newsletter, American Style, Biz Sherbert meets many starry-eyed young upstarts. Every issue, we ask her to choose one to put in VICE so we can try to make them famous.
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Jack is suspended from school. I won’t tell you why, but I will say I think he was mostly in the right. He’s in his senior year at a public high school on Long Island, in a town about an hour’s train ride from Manhattan.
When we first met at his hometown fair last fall, I knew Jack was special. He was like a labgrown example of a white boy raised in post-SoundCloud America. Dripped out in True Religion, speaking in the emerging tongues of the Gen Alpha internet, rosy cheeks atop his latest grail. More than anything, Jack lives with a kind of charisma popularly believed to have died off with kids in his generation, due to early onset iPad use or perhaps vaccines. There’s never a moment of dead air around him—everything is a joke, a lead-in to a story, or an unexpectedly deep observation about the big, tough world he was born into. Only after I, the adult responsible for his wellbeing for the day, had already bought him a Starbucks white chocolate mocha with extra white chocolate did he tell me that he’s diabetic. His delivery of this information, insulin kit in hand, was so mischievous that I couldn’t be mad.
VICE: What did you have for breakfast?
Jack: Half a coffee, because I got out of the shower and it wasn’t that hot. It was old, kind of ass. Just put the Twix creamer in there.
How old are you?
I turn 18 on Monday.
Where do you work?
Stop & Shop. I hate it.
What do you spend your money on?
Clothes. Uber. A car, hopefully. Give me three months.
What do you do on a Friday night?
I’ve worked every Friday for the past year and a half, excluding, like, two.
Do you get in trouble?
I’m suspended from school for a month. I don’t like to get in trouble. Trouble just kind of finds me.
Do you have a crush?
I’m not trying to have some, like, parasocial thing. But that girl from the Olympics… Alyssa Liu. She’s so pretty, man.
Are you political at all?
Yeah, very. Absolutely left.
What would you change about the world?
Healthcare, off rip. And the economy. I mean, the United States is built to serve people at the top and maintain the wealth gap. Trickle-down economics and all that shit is just a ploy to keep the machine fed. These greedy fucks at the top, why would they give you anything?
“I don’t like to get in trouble. Trouble just kind of finds me”
Do you think America used to be better?
I think America’s always been flawed. But pre-9/11, the 90s, based off everything I’ve seen, I feel like it was a very calm time, optimistic. Technology was advancing, people could still be somewhat well off.
I get it. I think a lot of people feel that way.
Fashion back then, it told you something about someone. If you like cars, you’d probably dress like a kid that was into cars. It means less now because everyone just wears what they see online. I hate that, even though I do it too. But I try to connect some meaning to it.
When you were 15 you said you were still wearing Nike sweatpants. What changed?
I met my friend Mason sophomore year. I just saw how fly he was and something clicked. I can confidently say I’ve never seen him in the same fit twice. From early on he was like, “Yo, bro I’m gonna get you fly.” I was his fashion trainee. That’s what we always used to say.
What is your most prized possession?
I don’t have it yet.
What do you think about Clavicular and looksmaxxing content?
That shit is so corny, bro. There’s a lot of people in my school who would fall under that right-pipeline content and I just choose not to associate with any of them.
“You’re just there, existing with the swag”
What are you scared of?
Death, honestly. It stays in my mind. Probably because of my habits. Vaping, smoking, and I get really bad anxiety, it makes my chest tight. For a while I couldn’t go a day without worrying about my life. Being diabetic doesn’t help.
What are you excited about for the future?
I’m just waiting for it to start. I need to get out there and make something of myself. That’s almost why I’m into fashion. It’s something to be proud of. You don’t have to say anything. You’re just there, existing with the swag.
What’s your dream for yourself?
Just being content. Waking up in the morning and feeling good.
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This column is from THE SELF-DESTRUCTION ISSUE of VICE magazine. Find it in a store near you, or get 4 issues each year sent straight to your door, by subscribing.
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