elephant guide: Top 10 People & Things You Should Pretend to Love in your College Years in your Liberal Phase.

10. Ani DiFranco or somesuch rebel lefty feminist/African-American musical artist. (Starting easy, with an all-time classic alt artist to looove in your young, idealistic years before you sell out).

9. Amy Goodman, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomasky and ultra-leftwing, crazy causes like Climate Change, Fracking and other things you’ll stop giving a damn about the second they conflict with your earning potential  (Bonus points: stop showering, get that I-don’t-care hair look. Double Bonus points: dreads)

8. Converse All-Stars (they may be corporate-owned, but there’s no easier way to pretend you’re alt than buying a pair at your “local” Target…except…)

7. …Toms (gorgeous yet cheaply made (in the Third World) shoes that, when you buy them, automatically donate a cheaper version to children in…the Third World. Great conversation ice-breakers. (Unrelated bonus points: if you’re a girl, cut your hair really short. If you’re a guy, grow it really long).

6. Knitting Circle (boys get extra points for joining). Don’t do at someone’s home, where folks won’t see you—do at a local café. (Subtract points: needlepointing.)

5. Pot. Buying the Marley poster freshman year isn’t enough. Hang in front of your local dispensary. If your city is still ass-backwards and illegalizes smoking something safer than drinking alcohol, you can still buy some clothes that lets folks know you smoke and listen to hip hop on fancy headphones you bought at Urban Outfitters (Bonus points: learn your hip hop from Pandora). Double Bonus points: Mushrooms, and know what (pure) MDMA stands for. BonusBonusBonus points: go vegan for a little while, talk forever about how you used to be vegan for a little while but realized you really need meat for your health ’cause you do this a lot).

4. Bisexuality (experiment a little, talk about your limited experience a lot). (Unrelated bonus points: get realllly into a decade twenty to forty years previous).

3. Anal Sex, Orgies, Group Sex (Loosely-related bonus points: build a teepee in your backyard).

2. Buy a Puppy (buy it here, then get frustrated without even bothering to watch Dog Whisperer and the dog mysteriously goes away after it’s no longer cute)

1. Live the Life. Go to at least two music festivals a year not including Burning Man. Go to at least 52 shows a year. Work at a café. Live poor, but secretly you’re a daddy and mommy-negotiating trustafarian. (Bonus points: get into some kind of Eastern religion. Doesn’t matter which one. Yoga counts, but only if you get an om tattoo. Piercings count).