Coachella? More like NO-chella for me. Here’s why it just might be a little too risky for me to attend the annual shit show. While you’re out in the scorching heat enjoying your $2,000+ vacation (and dressed like some superhero), I’ll be at home in Los Angeles, where it’s nice and calm since half of the city has left for the desert.
1. Aliens Might Attack
Say everything goes well and your $800 VIP package ticket thing worked and you’re having a great time enjoying a $78 Bud Light with the rest of the people who have super tite dope fake IDs. You’re chillin’ in the beer garden, enjoying your festival-themed outfit that the chick at Urban Outfitters helped you pick out, when, BAM! Little green men come down from the sky, smack dab in the middle of the AFI set! Before you can even get to the end of the 98 person-deep line to take a piss in the disease-leaking port-o-potties, you’re sucked up into a flying saucer, getting taken to Mars to colonize an Earthling zoo. This is a totally possible possibility and you can just never be too careful!
2. What About An Earthquake?
So you know someone who knows someone who knew the guys in LCD Soundsystem, and someone actually gave a shit and now you are backstage where the snacks are. There you are, enjoying your water from a can, staring at ASAP Ferg’s ass, enjoying the 117 degree day (not a cloud in site!) in between a speaker and that one guy in that one band that is too hip for a real name so they are only identified by three crosses, when OMG! An 8.7 earthquake hits L.A. and all your friends who aren’t as fortunate as you to be at such a cool festival are dead. They’re all dead now, and you’ll have no one to sit with in the art school cafeteria when you get back. What would you do?!?
Coachella Fashion Dos and Don’ts for Women
3. Tsunamis Are Real
You’re a big fan of Beck and you’re stoked about the strides he has made in Scientology. So you and your other Adventure Time-backpack’d buds snag a seat by the front of the stage where he’ll be talking on. Surely, you and your bud will be taking turns grabbing the $60 nachos while you sit there for seven hours to hold your awesome spot. Say you’re leaning back on your hands, calmly trying to capture that perfect selfie while simultaneously catching the attention of one of those style bloggers so you’ll end up on the Internet tomorrow (hard work!!). OH NO! You get a text from your mom and she says there has been a tsunami and everyone is dead so she can’t pick you up later. What about then, hot shot? WHAT ABOUT THEN?
4. The Economy Is In The Tank
You’re rocking out with your glow sticks to Bombino or Bombay Bicycle Club or Bonobo (you’re on way too many ‘shrooms to remember but it’s something with a “B”), being rained upon by the human condensation that tends to drip down from the ceiling inside those hamster ball-like tents (the ones where they put the artists who are cool enough to wear leather jackets no matter what the temperature). You’re having a great time updating your Facebook status to make all your friendz hella jelly and WHAT?!! Someone steals your ironic Hello Kitty wallet, right out of your crocheted tie-dye shorts! You’ve got no money to pay your dealer for the moon rocks you were going to take when OutKast sang “Hey-Ya”, and your MDMA-spiked Gatorade was accidentally chugged by some new friend that you made while getting treated for dehydration in the med tent! (Because who wouldn’t be dehydrated after that siiiiick Cajmere set?) You might be at Coachella, but the money your parents gave you is gone so your party is ruined. The economy has turned people into LITERAL JEFFREY DAHMERS. Or Robin Hoods. Whichever the dude that pick-pocketed people was. And me? I’m not willing to risk it.
Coachella Fashion Dos and Don’ts for Men
5. You Have a Life-Shattering Moment of Clarity
What if, in your gladiator sandals and your floppy hat, you realize that you’re waiting in line and bobbing your head in what is essentially a giant 7-11 parking lot, while you’re covered in other people’s sweat? What if you look up at the sky and think, “is a degree in post-modern cinematography NOT a very financially strategic decision in the long run?” and then your friend passes out from heat stroke? And you think of that one lecture you heard on existentialism and how none of this matters at all and you should maybe be living in the woods, off the land, wearing clothes that weren’t all made in China, and overpriced times infinity so that corporations could prey on young adults like you? What if you realized that while you’re giving these horrible people millions of dollars for these exponential moments of nothing, there is a perpetually escalating situation on the Gaza Strip, kids are starving to death and getting bombed and raped in Syria, the majority of the population in Afghanistan is addicted to heroin and Russia is attempting to absorb Ukraine?
I mean how annoying would that moment be?
Words: Chloe Newsom
More on Coachella:
6 Lesser Known Acts You Must See at Coachella
20 Photos That Will Get You PUMPED for Coachella
5 Things You Should Not Wear at Coachella
