Things I Wish I'd Known: Volume 1

Here's the thing: I hated teenagers (even when I was one. Wait, no, especially when I was one) up until the point I realised I wasn't scared of teenagers anymore. I remember the exact moment this happened: on a train to Guildford. Me with my book by Kafka, leopard print coat, black boots and heavy eyeliner (fuck. I *am* a fucking teenager according to that description. Maybe that's why I'm 26 and still get ID'd on a regular basis? Best we just move past this disturbing fact and pretend like it doesn't exist. I'll add it to all the other woes I'm currently forming into a delicious ball of stomach cancer. Repression: the white middle-class cure [for everything but stomach cancer] since 1935.)

Point is, I'm weird. I stick out a bit at times (at others, for instance Noel Fielding stand-up gigs, I look like I've been to the same cookie-cutter weirdo factory as every white girl under 30 and been dressed by blind monkeys who've been given the keys to Topshop and told to 'go wild'). Next thing I know a bunch of teenagers who've been allowed free access to JD Sports hop aboard and disturb the quiet peace of my (thus far) uneventful train journey. Previously I had chosen the 'Shhhh' carriage to ensure maximum shhh-y-ness (or the 'no I don't have any friends and I know you don't either. Let's all sit here in awkward silence whilst studiously avoiding eye contact with one another' carriage. Whatevs) but this ragamuffin bunch of pals cared not for the 'rules' of the 'man' because they were 'cool' (and also dicks as it turned out but we'll come to this later... *spoiler alert!*). Anyway, here I am, Weirdo McGinty sat happily alone reading my weird book and being all weird and a load of kids decked out in knock-off Nike come sit all around me and... the weirdest
thing is... I WAS NOT INTIMIDATED. Well, maybe a bit at first because, you know, teenagers, ALL OF THEM, are dicks. Individually, no. They are beautiful, eccentric, glorious people with interesting things to say, curious points of view, hopes and fears and dreams and all the rest of it: individually. In a group? Not so much. Teenagers are the epitome of dickishness. Because the one thing that teenagers care about is fitting in. The only way you can fit in when you're a teenager? By being a dick. You make fun of all the kids, adults, whomever, that stand out. You do this because everyone else does it. Everyone else does it because they are scared that someone will notice and draw attention to their flaws and the ways in which they don't fit in. It's the thing we all learned from Siegfried and Roy: misdirection... Don't look here, where I know the flaws are, LOOK OVER THERE! THERE ARE FLAWS WE CAN CAN ALL ENJOY AND MAKE FUN OF! SEE HOW MUCH FUN WE'RE HAVING MAKING PEOPLE FEEL AWFUL ABOUT THEMSELVES?!?!?! Why do I feel dead inside?

Anyway, after a brief second of 'oh shit'. I went back to pretending reading my book and in actual fact listening to what these kids where saying (*spoiler alert!* nothing of any value). But they left me alone. This is either because:
1. I'm not the centre of everyone's universe and they had other shit to worry about
(we can discard this option on the basis that it is FRIGGING PREPOSTEROUS)
2. They could tell I didn't give a crap what they thought of me.

Anyway, the point is, even having worked in a secondary school for a year (which is where I really learned all the 'individually = lovely, group = dicks' things. It's a foolproof formula that I suggest you go off and investigate because, seriously, who knew teenagers were people at times?!) it was only at that exact moment in time I didn't care what they thought of me and I'm sure they knew it. Although it would go against everything the school system stands for, to preach individuality and original thought and not caring too deeply if people make you feel bad about yourself for being not like everyone else, it seems like it might be worthwhile somehow to not have, you know, teenagers being dicks when they all get together. I'm jus' sayin'.

This is the video that set that blog reaction off.

[Via Gawker]

These boys, way before I did, understand all this much better than I ever did. I don't know if they're actually gay (I've got a feeling no though I'm not sure why) but if someone rags on you for being gay (or fat, or ugly, or strange, or carrying around a signed picture of Dolly Parton everywhere you go) then you have two options:
1. Carry the humiliation around with you for the rest of your life never really daring to be 'you' because you're scared that other people will make fun of you for it,
2. Be like 'fuck yeah I am and what of it bitches?'

Option two seems infinitely preferable. And a whole lot more open to delicious comedy routines such as the aforementioned one above ('This is sooo appropriate right now').

It's your choice: be who are times ten - loud and proud and self deprecating - or who they want you to be - just like everyone else. The dickish teenager mentality doesn't last for everyone but it doesn't disappear for everyone either so it's not a struggle that ever goes away.

That's a thing I wished I'd known - that there was ever that option to begin with.