maybe im boring but i still think about how i've never felt like i've truly fit in, no matter what group i tethered to, in fact- the "outcasts" often seemed meaner than the popular girls -- from someone who has been both part of the outcasts and in on the populars --
which got me thinking about the movie Mean Girls. wherein a lot of people walk away with the basic perception that there was a clear villain (or group of villain or a villain with some hench-wo-men) and a clear good guy, or group of good guys here the good guys call out and scheme against the villain to take them down and they succeed; in the bus scene. but thats not quite how it happened, mean girls isnt about ONE group of mean girls that needed to be taken down a peg, but in fact the movie was about many mean girls, who were just in different fonts in my experience, it's as if these outcasts of highschool have rules like that of the plastics, just more socially more so than fashionally it was unspoken (which made it all the more difficult for me) but you had to be the correct kind of "alt", feminine was banned but so was being ugly, 6 pairs of shoes were still bought, except they were doc martins and combat boots (none thrifted ofc), pins were all the craze rather than scrunchies or hairpins, and if you dared going against the stream of the collective thought you get shut-out, no talking, no notes, no smiles, just ghosting And you remember this hierarchy Mean Girls set up with Regina George at the top (and reversely Janis at the top of her own little hierarchy)? I've honestly never seen this more present then in these groups of outcasts, at least theirs is more noticeable irl it's like everyone is holding their breath for one person,, i dont get it, i didn't get it you'd wish that in real life it would all wrap itself up in a neat little bow like it did in the movie, with outcasts and plastics talking to each other like actual normal people, but in real life, people seem to stick to their guns. ive noticed a lot of outcasts seem to have weird hobbies, personally i think it's a kind of snowball effect, being cast out makes you more open to weird hobbies, liking weird hobbies makes you more cast out- and the snowball continues (this is probably why we get weird discord e-kitten moderators, <- thats my game theory) I think the reason why a lot of popular girls seem nicer is because thats how they remain popular, its probably partially how sexist culture teaches girls that their smiles and nice-ness is their best quality and self-sacrifice is simply girlhood, so when all of that is met with a dash of pretty privilege, nepoism and good luck you get a popular girl, whilst if any of those fail you get a Janis- a cast-out.
for popular people, they get more popular by feeding into all of this, be prettier, be richer, be nicer, be more self, sacrificial = reward for outcasts it's the opposite; negativity, masculinity, self-serving-ness (and so on and so forth) = reward* (*within the social hierarchy they've created) (the reward is as stated before with the snowball effect) i dont know how to end this at all honestly, maybe it was just a rant, about life or about a 2004 movie i dont know Now of course every now and again you will meet someone who completely thwarts your preconceptions of them, it's normal and expected and i encourage you to meet them where they're at, not with hostility towards the unfamiliar
