No Surprises Here

If you look closely into our social society, well my social society, the groups of teenagers I see daily, at school, on the weekends, all the time. We all have one thing about us that's the same. We all want to be different. We all try so hard to be unique, to be original, to stand out. Really though, what's the point? What difference does it make whether or not we're special? Well, I think, although I'm certainly no expert, that we all want to be remembered. We all want people to notice us. We want to be seen as leaders, not followers.

We fill our Myspace "about me's" with meaningful passages of how special life is, and how we're not your average 16 year old kid. You know? We're more than that. We're all amazingly special, insightful children. We make sure to regularly update our Twitters and Facebook statuses with quotes on love and happiness, like we know shit about either.

So, basically we want to be original and we want to shine. Keep in mind, though, we can't be too different. If you're too different you're a freak. If you wear clothes that are too original, they might just be weird. There's unique and then there's weird. Nobody wants to be weird. We all say we're weird, but do any of us want to be that freaky chick with the crazy looking bright purple hair with the green streak through the middle? Like a friend of mine used to and still says, "There's weird, and then there's weird."

At Kennedy, I'd say we have a problem. It's this clique we call "the dirties". Naming a group of people something that derogatory is almost kind of shocking, but not really. We've all just gotten used to it. Most of those people aren't even actually dirty. For example, a boy walked by my friend and I. "He's a dirty," she said.

"His hair's wet, he showered this morning, so he's obviously not."

To that she said, "He just is."

I'm not saying that I'm just so saintly about all that. I call them dirties, too. But really, all they are are people who dress however they want to, wear their hair the way they like, and listen to nobody but themselves when they decide what's cool. They choose for themselves. While us, we all spend many a minute every morning trying to figure out what we should wear.

As I write, I may be making it sound like I'm exempt to all of this, but really, I'm just like everybody else. I stress over how to look good, I worry about fitting in, but then I also want to make my mark, and not be forgotten.

Fitting in and standing out, funny how we stress over the most trivial things. Things that won't even matter once high school's through. But it's the way things have been for probably the last century or millennium. Whichever. The point is, it's not going to change anytime soon.