Where HAVE All the Weird Girls Gone?

I've never been a big TV-watcher, but I seem to be watching less and less TV these days (years). Some of that is because of our busy lifestyle, I now have kids and so when the TV is on, it's usually tuned to something kid-friendly and (hopefully ... eek!) educational. I used to be a news junkie and I don't even watch that anymore. There are pretty much three shows that I watch regularly: The Office, Project Runway and Madmen.

I've heard about some of the newer teenage-aimed shows gaining audiences out there such as the hit show, Gossip Girl. It is about a bunch of NYC socialite kids and their drama, I mean, lives. I caught my first episode of it last week. Don't know if it was just me, but I found it ridiculous and mind-numbing (I fell asleep) and then I felt kind of sad for teenage girls today that junk like that is what they are bombarded with as the picture of "cool." I could faint and then drown in my own pool of drama just over that!

So, I got to thinking about it and then I read Paste Magazine's brief article, "Where Have All The Weird Girls Gone? Gone to the Big Screen, (Nearly) Every One," and felt that they were totally on to something, pointing out this major discrepancy in today's lopsided offering of normal, a.k.a. weird, female characters on television. I live in a college town and so I see and know of several girls around that age. I'm pleased to announce that the college kind I know are wicked cool. However, from what I observe (and I realize this could be seriously biased because it is ALL about my observation and not about knowing these girls personally) they look alike, sound alike, dress alike, poof their hair alike and while I'm sure they're just as adorable as they can be, BORE ME to pieces just to watch them walk in packs home from class.

So, trying to get all pop culture-y to make comparisons here, I tried to think about who and what is out there for these girls to watch, emulate and even admire. Britney Spears? I can't even deal with how bad her music is, but her LYRICS are even worse. Taylor Swift? Miley Cyrus? I guess those two would be considered on the wholesome side of things, but they're still not representative of Paste's definition of a weird girl, though. Christina Aguilera? She's got some pipes, I'll give her that, but only if you like your ears to ring with that kind of vibrato. So there's Pink, for the "edgier" sell-out. Sorry, I can't hang there either. Hurts my ears, I tell ya. So, who and what out there today is normal-cool/weird?

I'm not sayin' that there aren't ANY cool weird girls out there of this teenage generation. I know some. However, poor them if every other girl is trying to be "cool" by what is currently portrayed as cool on TV. Seems like today, weird girls are doomed for epic failure in socially cool if they don't have private cheer-leading lessons from the time they're three-years-old. Nowadays, if you start later like other normal girls, you're thirteen and can't do a back handspring to save your life. If you're one of those girls (a non-back handspringing thirteen-year-old), go ahead and count yourself off that list of who's made the cheer-leading squad! *Side note: Not slamming gymnasts' or cheerleaders, here. It really is a sport.

Teenage guys are just as guilty of perpetuating this deep black hole. Guys (and feel free to weigh in here in the comments fellas) seem to like the stereotypical beauty being put out there right now and the often mean interior to go with it. So, if they like it and weird girls see that's what gets "cool" guys' attention, there's not a hope or prayer for the poor weird girl that likes it a little indie instead of a little lame. Or at least not a prayer in high school or even college.

I will say that there are some rare young men that see through all that mess-a-heap and like girls for who they really are and are about. And, they flipping rock. I do also believe, that after trudging through several years of trying to get the "cool" girl(s) in high school, college, etc., they realize once they get there that they're (in most cases) simply talking to a brick wall that really isn't at all sure what she's about because there's no one else around to ask or compare herself to. What happens to the truly cool guys after growing up enough to call a brick wall what it is, is that, one day he meets a truly cool weird girl and he finds something more beautiful than he'd ever imagined possible; a mind, a soul and a beautiful (at least in his eyes) face to go with it.

Please say this isn't dead! Being plagued by Paste magazine's definition of a weird girl my whole life, I know the woes of my kind. It is tough for all girls, no doubt, but it's especially tough for weird girls. An example of the rudest thing ever to happen to weird me in college? Let me tell you a little (true) story.

I had a good friend, an actual cool guy who gave being in a fraternity a good name, invite me to a function. I never rushed and so this world was new to me. I was apprehensive to go. Being the cool weird kind that we were, we saw and petted the cute little farm animals at the function, said hello to those we knew and then ditched all that and went to listen to The Cure in his room. (Nothing happened. Like I said, we really were good friends.) Anyway, I "pulled (my first) cotton" because of that night. What is pulling some cotton? It is a term frat guys coined pertaining to the acquisition of the free t-shirt they'd score to be a sorority girl's date for her function. A free t-shirt of that function was a guaranteed parting gift and if you pulled a lot of cotton, the t-shirt-mountain-of-cotton grew and grew, a symbolic trophy of one's greatness, really.

So, at the end of that fun night as a joke (although I did appreciate the gesture), I put my new tee on over my too long overalls, did a little jig in it and like I did many nights in college, went home late, de-overalled and slept in that t-shirt. With maybe four hours of sleep, I woke up for my 7:30 a.m. Algebra class, brushed my teeth, threw on some jeans, kicks and probably a hat, still grossly wearing my unwashed function tee from the night before. Super tired and hungry after my class, which was directly across from my college dorm dining hall, I went to Brough and got in line to get my tray so I could fix a bowl of Captain Crunch. A guy who I'll call "Carson" who was in the same fraternity as my friend but a spring rush, is in line in front of me. He notices and points to last night's farmer-in-the-dell fraternity tee and says sarcastically to me with a smirk, "Well, I bet you FINALLY feel cool now, don't-cha?"

Let's just say I'm glad my brother and I didn't go to the same college.

If I'd had a full bowl of milky Captain Crunch goodness, I'm not sure that I wouldn't have poured it on his head right then. After I simmered down, I realized that he was the dork. No really, he was a vain, mean, dork. Every time I saw him after that, I'd uncomfortably stare him down just a little bit to remind him that yes, I was a weird girl, I was kind of starting to be proud of it and that he was a tool and I'd caught him being a tool. This so makes me laugh, now.

So, the movie, Juno; I love her character and Ellen Page nailed the snark-y teenage bomb of weird-girl wit and sass. In one scene in the movie she says that the cool guys always like the weird girls, but were just afraid to admit it, so they taunt them because they don't know what else to do. I can't really prove or disprove this, but I did see this authenticated a couple times in my life.

Let's go back to my high school, shall we? There was this guy at my high school, we'll call him "Brian," who would NOT leave me and my vintage Mazzio's Pizza, rainbow-collared, uniform-shirt alone. I didn't ever work there, I just liked the rainbow collar. He drove a 5.0 Mustang, played baseball, apparently thought he was black and had lots of people paging him, often.Knowing there was a picture of me in the Mazzio's shirt somewhere in existence, I laid into my old photos and I found it! This is actually me in college. Anyway, this is on a camping trip to a music festival in Bushnell, IL, circa 1997-ish? Dig it. It's glorious, right?

I was super shy to people I didn't know back then. When he'd playfully corner me in the hall and ask if I wanted to skip class and go smoke at Murray Park, I'd sarcastically make a joke about how good kids don't skip school, or that my public education was valuable to me so, I better not. In study hall one day, he rolled up a piece of three-ring notebook paper into a cone and started to spit dip-spit into it. I did my best to repress my gag. When he sassed our teacher and demanded the hall pass to go wander, I felt bad for her. He had such little respect for others, much less, himself. Through all of that, I learned by watching him and his kind, that being cool sure was hard work. And, it looked ridiculous.

Anyway, eventually he stopped cornering me (he graduated a year before me) and teasing me about my Mazzio's shirt and the like. I hope that my standing firm, not pandering or laughing at his attempt to be cool, somehow showed him that he could lose all that and that in doing that, someone would think the real him was really cool.

I know it seems like I'm slamming these poor guys and I guess I kind of am. However, I also know that all of us were or still are on the road to figuring out who we are and that they, although in such a sad way, were just doing the same. An alarming thought just came to me, though! Lord help 'em if they're STILL that way and thank GOD I don't have to see it coming at me down the hall ever again.

To bring it all back around to what's "cool" now, a word to the weird teenage girls, weird college students and even weird young moms like me (I know you're still out there!) ... Keep it weird, y'all! I don't care who you are (even if you really do like Miley Cyrus) it's so much prettier inside and out to see someone genuinely comfortable in their own skin. Word to that?

And, to the girls who were or are considered "cool" according to prime time television, bless you and all the girls striving to be like you. Some of you were groomed to be that way and don't know any better. Some of you want to be that way and to you I say that I hope you become an awesome brick-layer (at least until it all crumbles). Build those exteriors high and tall, keep 'em taut and tight, NEVER admit you're flawed or lame, keep being mean, click-ish, un-accepting of others, never change and may God have mercy and grace on you so that one day you may see the light.