I hate to say it, but I think to most people I probably look like a chud. Anyone who has known me for more than 4 seconds knows I'm not, but I'm afraid I still visibly give off that vibe. I'm a man, or think I'm probably nonbinary tbh, but I still present and appear fully masculine, close to 40, full beard and mostly just wear plain dark t-shirts with no logo and dark jeans. I do have shoulder-length long hair, but so have plenty of chuds I've been acquainted with. I don't have any sense of style and have never tried to learn or care about fashion, but no disrespect to those who do.
I probably shouldn't care, but I hate knowing that when I'm around people they probably think I'm a reddit gamer or worse. Should I try to change my appearance or should I just learn not to give shit? Does anyone else here worry about that?
I'm also going to be getting glasses in the next few days and have to decide on a frame. What should I get to try to minimize chud appearance? I have kind of a squarish face but maybe a bit rounder now as I get older. Do certain kinds of glasses scream redditor or chud? Any advice on what I should go for is welcome.
Edit- Thank you for the advice to everyone who commented I really appreciate it. I am afraid I might have given the wrong impression on some of it so to clarify, I'll just quote one of my responses
I do want to look unassuming. I'm pretty bad with social anxiety and most of the time I just want to go unnoticed. But I worry even that in going unnoticed I'll give off the wrong impression. Chud is an extreme I probably shouldn't have used because I don't think anyone would ever look at me and think gun totin' confederate flag waving chud or wannabe cop or some shit.
The worry is looking more like the aloof redditor, new athiest or even altright leaning brand of chud, or maybe I'm using the word chud wrong. As far as the nonbinary thing, that's a lot to get into, but just as far as dress style, I don't really want to look masculine OR feminine. I used to wear more feminine coded things when I was younger, but these days I feel like the plainer the better. I do have some leftist t-shirts, but I save those for certain occasions or when I'm going to be around certain people, or even trying to do leftist signaling without libs knowing with my All Cats are Beautiful shirt. Most of the time all I wear is a plain dark color with NO messaging at all not even a visible logo. I guess it's less that I want to indicate my politics and more that I don't want to announce the wrong politics when I'm just going about my day.
To be totally honest, I posted mostly because of the glasses I'll be getting and I don't want frames that make me look like Vaush.
You're probably worrying about something that isn't there. I sincerely doubt anyone is gonna assume youre a chud just cause of that look. A lot of perfectly cool people also rock that look. If i could be bold I think the commonality with chuds that you're worried about is having no sense of style. All black clothes and no logo just sounds like people would think youre into metal based on the rest of your look.
So if you wanna keep going on the sol black thing and make thet work that's how I dress so i can say what I do at least. My shirts are either borderline rags or black button up dress shirts. I cut the collar and at least half the sleeve off of em, theyre also mostly punk band shirts. I'll get into making your own graphics later. For pants, skinny is best, baggy black pants kinda just look like a blob cause its harder to see the folds and stuff that can make baggy lighter pants look cooler (im anti baggy for pants regardless but I get a baggy blue jean better than a baggy black jeans. Having a jacket that goes with most of what you wear also rules. I recommend getting 2 nice black jeans jackets that fit good and turning one into a vest for summer time. Then you're all black but the different fabric and tones will add some distinction. I don't give a shit about shoes, but don't wear white ones with all black unless you need to. I mostly wear nondescript non slip sneakers that I get tax write-offs for cause of my job and have engineer boots that are the only thing I shelled out any real money for.
For graphics id start by learning to stencil and then see if anywhere in your town has a screen printing workshop you could take part in. Or just buy the gear. Its worth it.
For stencils, make or find a design and make it stencil friendly. In grocery stores around the plastic wraps and stuff you can find something called freezer paper, its cheap af and the important part is its waxed on just one side. So you can draw your design on the unwaxed side, cut it out with an exacto knife and then use an iron or even just a the bottom of a pot you heated up a bit on the stove to melt the waxed side down. Then you can just go over it with a paint roller. The wax will keep the paint from seeping through l. Just make sure to seal around the graphic real good for clean lines. You can get fabric paint at any art store, it costs a bit but you can dilute it with regular cheap acrylic to 2/3rds acrylic although you'll get a top layer that will either flake or wash off, what's underneath should be sturdy. I still have patches and stuff I made back in high school 20 years ago that look fine.
This is it exactly. You nailed what the concern really is.
As for the rest, that is really detailed awesome advice thank you. Hopefully at some point I will want to actually develop some sort of style and what you're describing is in line with what I imagined that might be like, so I'm saving this comment and hopefully referring back to it. But for the moment, I just wanted to not be too visible while also not giving off a redditor vibe, but maybe that's not possible. Might be one of those things a person just has to put the work into if they don't want to garner the wrong impressions.
If you're having fun with it, that comes through and can be enough until you get a look locked down. Person Trying Out a Look when they're out there trying to to get a feel for it is nice to see. For the most part the amount people don't give a shit how you look is pretty amazing, everyone has their own shit to deal with. They'll either enjoy that youre playing dress up or who needs em?
Engineer boot punx rise up. I almost exclusively wear black vans and its such an adjustment to wear clunky boots lol I love them so much though. Who do you get hours from? Or have you just lucked out with hand me downs/thrift shops?
Went in on an order with a friend over a decade ago. Not sure where from. Its the only article of clothes aside from socks or underwear I haven't gotten from a roadside giveaway box in about that long as well. I live in a college town so at the end of each semester theres major scores. I got a fantastic double breasted peacoat from a box that had been my main winter jacket for years. It's high quality af and was just missing a button. There's a pointless strap on the back with 4 buttons that aren't doing anything, I just took 3 off and put one on the important part.
I've never gone out for hippie christmas I really should've done it this year, I have friends who have found like $300 boots and guitars and shit in the dumpsters. People are so wasteful but at least they were come ups for someone else