Usually, when someone starts college, they turn into a hipster. They eat rainbow colored food that just tastes like regular food and drink beverages out of light bulbs. They wear winter hats all the time and anything forest green.

They buy from local businesses and anything biodegradable. And they’re extremely pretentious with their music tastes: their choices usually being current indie and alternative rock and anything not from this millennium.

And this is one of the many, many reasons why so many people hate millennials and there are so many self-hating millennials, me being one of them.

However, I thought I was immune to becoming one of these pretentious millennial hipsters because I sort of went through this phase when I was about 10-11 years old with my music tastes. I had a huge aversion to any current pop song unless it was a former American Idol contestant, Duffy, was a cover from Glee or was a country song. But the weirdest thing was that I actually did like some pop songs, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga being examples, but refused to admit it.

The reason I was so stubborn was a bit of a hipster reason as well. I felt like everyone else had the exact same tastes, and no one shared my tastes. All of my peers watched Disney or Nickelodeon, while I watched PBS Kids Go, cartoons on Saturday mornings, and any reality show on the local channels and Bravo. (My family only had basic cable.)

Everyone else seemed to automatically like whatever new song was number one on iTunes that week. I was annoyed.

I always had prided myself on being an individual and wanted to voice that to the world. Eventually, I just got over it and matured. I realized it was okay to like something that was popular and I still had a very diverse music library that not a lot of people had. For example, songs from Barbie movies.

Once I learned what exactly a hipster and a millennial were, and the stereotypes that came with being one of them, my cynical side immediately came out. It didn’t help that there were many jokes about hipsters and millennials. Those would make anyone want to avoid the label.

However, I felt that I would never be one of those people who became a hipster in college and/or once they got a Tumblr.

I was brought back down to Earth a few days ago when I watched a few of those ”Try Not To Sing Challenges” on YouTube. I watched a few on the "Fine Bros" channel that involved reactors picking the songs to attempt not to sing along with. One was with adults and the other was with teens.

I found the challenge harder with the adults: it had a mix of oldies, current hits and a variety of genres. The video with the teens all seemed to be current pop and R&B songs, with the exception of “Our Song,” by Taylor Swift (which was obviously difficult for me, especially if you’ve seen my past few articles), and “Take on Me,” by A-Ha, (which was just as hard as the Taylor Swift).

While I was watching the video with the teens, they kept saying about how not singing along to these songs were “painful,” and when they broke they said stuff like, “you have to sing along to that.”

Meanwhile, I kept thinking, “Most of these kids have horrible taste! This is easy!” I immediately flashbacked to a time when I was making a 2017 playlist and I was struggling to figure out what to add because I didn’t like a lot of music from that year.

I immediately felt like I was being a bit of an elitist, and I was falling into that trap of being a hipster, what I feared I’d become a few years prior.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about this, or what to think about this.

Any advice?