One morning, I was channel-surfing as I got nothing to do when I happened to stumble upon Mean Girls On cable. It was just starting out, so I decided to pass the time while having a drink. I remember this movie was so popular, I've seen its trailer on tv a hundred times.
I went to the cinema to see it with my new-found college friends. Back then, I really didn't think much of the movie. Heck, I actually enjoyed it because it was a nice high school flick with some cute moments, and I thought it spoke to a lot of kids who didn't like high school that much.
Unfortunately, I was one of those kids that movie was speaking to.
When I watched the movie again for the first time in more than a decade, it reminded me so much of the things I hate about high school, especially those characters and nasty stereotypes that sadly exist. It really rubs them in, and while it's funny on the big screen, in reality it sucks.
There were the nerdy kids in Cady's Math competition. There's the gay guy Damian. The outcast like Janis Ian who doesn't fit in. The fat, homely girls like Emma Gerber. The class crush Aaron Samuels. And there's the clique of popular girls called The Plastics who can say and do whatever they want and get away with it just because they can.
When I was in high school, I wasn't popular. Not that I wanted to be, anyway. If I could identify myself in the movie, I'd definitely be just like those Math nerds who probably did nothing but study. I mean, I was mostly that, anyway. Looking back, I think I'm the biggest class nerd and if you ask all of my classmates, most of them would point at me.
Thankfully, though, I wasn't bullied that bad. Well, except that time when I was 14 and I just transferred schools. Everyday I was made fun of by the boys in class for my weight, I was a fucking loner who would eat by myself at lunch and occasionally someone would throw crumpled paper at me and up to this day I still don't know who it was. It was hell and it was the worst.
On my junior and senior high school years, I went to an all-girls school. Most of the time I went along great with other girls, but being an introvert it really sucked to be invisible and oftentimes to be ignored especially when I wasn't needed. I guess if you're an honors student, people will only care to flock to you to ask if there was some homework or quiz coming up and they wanted some help. I always dreaded whenever we had to do a project to be done in pairs and we can work with anyone we liked, because that would mean I could not find a partner and nobody would ask me out, either. I also hated group projects because I had no friends and I was often stuck with groups that were lacking in members.
Even though it was an all-girls school, thank God there were no catfights over some guy.
I couldn't be more thankful to be out of high school for more than a decade now. Watching the Burn Book be spread like that all over school must hurt especially if you're timid, quiet, nerdy or anything else but influential. Just imagine what kids can do now in this day and age. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube - there's just way too many ways to bully or harass someone and now, the whole world will get to laugh or harass you as well. It's ugly if you're the target of humiliation with your picture on, or a video of you. It's traumatizing and beyond stressful.
All I can say is, I'm just glad I've outlived high school and all the people I've met, I've left behind. I've already cut ties with most people, heck I don't even know what my teachers are up to. Most of all, it's a hellhole, that's for sure - thankfully, my memories there were not documented and have already been forgotten.