About Nesrine

Dear reader,

I'm Nesrine Naïmane and I'm an eclectic creator based in Belgium. I was born and raised in the town of Genk which is about an hour away from the capital, and in Belgian terms that's quite far away. Growing up there I always felt limited and yes, a big part of that was my parents' way of raising me. I come from a Islamic family with roots in Morocco. You could call me a third generation immigrant but others might debate this because my mother was born and raised in Morocco. Either way, in my hometown I was really treated as a Moroccan girl and sometimes nothing more than that. My peers had made their own ideas of what it means to be a Moroccan girl. It usually meant that I was treated as a bully and someone who's tough as nails. The thing is that before going to secondary school I'd never experienced this. Sure, I could deal with people treating me differently because of the color of my skin, but people expecting me to be or act a certain way because I'm of Moroccan descent was completely new to me. It gets even weirder when I am reminded of the fact that people usually couldn't guess my roots. So it wasn't until I'd answer the question that they'd have those prenotions. And yes, that is very sad.

Me and my class (2010)

It also didn't help that for the first time in three years I was in the same class as another Moroccan girl. Unfortunately she was quite the bully and tough as nails which didn't help my co-students' idea on girls of color. She'd actively bully a kid who'd suffered perinatal asphyxia causing him to attempt suicide by jumping down ten steps of stairs. I had a tough time getting used to secondary school: I was a pretty shy kid who'd turn red pretty fast. There were times that I cried during class because the teacher wasn't being nice or helpful. All I wanted was to fit in and be liked by my peers. Did I do stupid things to achieve that? Hell yes! I did three things hoping to fall in her favor (and also so she wouldn't bully me). I'd let her cheat off me during our history exam, which resulted in both of us getting a zero. I'd also collected cigarette butts for her to smoke during our trip to the High Fens. That same trip I'd given her the casing of my pen so she could snort Ibuprofen more easily. She has actually never apologized to anyone for being such a pain in the neck. 

Me in Paris (2011)

Luckily after all of this happening I had realized that I still don't need to fit in: I had the internet. I was really fond of browser games back then (if they were properly playable today I'd still be). My go-tos were Stardoll, Neopets, AdventureQuest and Habbo Hotel. Of course there were way more, but these four I played at least every week (or even daily) and they aren't defunct like Roiworld (R.I.P. - rest in pixels). Stardoll and Neopets I played so religiously I even learned a bit of HTML so I could make my bio and shop look "unique." And let's not forget how these games taught me about web proxy servers to get region locked items. So yeah, these were my safe havens growing up. These games all had communities of their own with dedicated blogs, like The Stardoll Insiders. Oh, how I wished to be a part of them, but now I know the writers were a bit older than I was at the time. And I was already getting my fair share of grooming on Habbo Hotel so I'm happy I didn't dip my toes in their blogosphere. 

Me at Karlovy Lazne in Prague (2013)

It wasn't until the age of fifteen that I decided to start my own blog, inspired by other fashion bloggers like Fleur van Sambeeck from GirlyenGeeky and others I unfortunately don't remember. I do remember they all had written a sock bun tutorial, which I'd used to perfect my bun for picture day at school that year. I started out blogging in Dutch but soon I'd realized that I preferred English because it's the language I'd used online ever since I got my first internet connection at eight years old; it came more naturally to me. The name chosen for my first blog was "Nesrine Told You So" taking into account that I'd write about fashion news (little fashion journalist in the making?). Only a year later I changed the name to Not So French Fries. This has quite the story not a lot of people actually know about. The name actually reflects my own feeling of being someone I don't seem to be. People often think french fries are from France even though they're actually Belgian. 

Me in my dorm room (2015)

It's very obvious now that I didn't want to be associated with all the preconceptions that came with being a person with foreign roots: I wanted to be my own person and be treated like my peers with roots you couldn't see as clearly as mine. I don't hate my heritage at all, but when people immediately assume you are a certain way because of it you naturally start loathing it. You think of all the bad: the violence, the misogyny etc. I have to remind myself of all the beauty, but that's rough when so much sadness, anger and hurt are linked with it. Luckily other people help me in seeing through all that. My high school friend Marthe always knew how to show me allure of the Arab world. Writer Aya Sabi got me to regain my love for Moroccan food with her novel "Half Leven" (English: "Half Life"). While I was studying Japanology the students of Arab Studies and Islamology also helped me discover my love for the language with their curiosity about Darijia or Moroccan Arabic.

Me modelling for Fujifilm (2023)

I would never deny my heritage but I will always be proud referring to myself as Belgian, which was heresy growing up in Genk. And yes, I'm prepared for people asking me where I'm from, followed by asking where I'm really from because I like acting oblivious when asked the previous question. Oh well, I've accepted that for now it's what people (mostly people of color) have to deal with since people will always be curious about ones roots, be it a different country or a different province: it's just part of our society. I'm at least relieved people have stopped asking me whether I'm religious (hint: I'm not) as that is something a bit more personal. The possibility exists that I'll write something on that in the future but for now I'll keep it at this. 

Thank you for reading this more extensive introduction, and take care.