Sinister: dont want acceptance, dont want tradition

[Ailsa Ross]

Hello again 

Erica "Graham" MacArthur wrote:

> I've though
> about this quite a bit, and I think overall, there is no geek/cool people
> divide in schools. It's a myth exaggerated by films and books, and indeed
> Pulp songs. It's a romantic notion which I would have taken pleasure in
> indulging in given cause, but even if I never used to have any friends in
> the first year, it wasn't cool people that slinked up to me and took the
> piss, it was just nasty nerds, who took pleasure in making other people
> feel like they had. There are just seperate little communities (the
> obligitary 'in' crowd) and people who get picked on because they are
> slightly different to everyone else.

I don't know how many of you were ever bullied at school for being
different, but let me tell you from someone who lives with the
consequences every day, that being in the separate little community that
gets picked on for being different, it certainly FEELS like there is a
big divide.  Maybe it's not as evident in your school, or these days in
general but ten years ago when I was in school, there was a bloody HUGE
gap and I was way on the wrong side of it.

This certainly isn't a "romantic notion" I cooked up to find deeper
meaning in Stuart's or Jarvis' lyrics.  I would do anything to go back
and have it all different, but I can't and I find it more than a little
disturbing when people say that they would love to indulge the romantic
notion of the geek/cool divide, like being a victim of childhood
bullying is something to aspire to.  I had my life turned upside down by
the "cool kids" at school, and the teachers too, come to think of it,
for being too smart (hey, I'm a real-life Lord Anthony) and for being
ugly and fat and wearing glasses and not having the right clothes and
everything else.  Some people may see that as just part of growing up,
but as someone who has become incapable of trusting people, accepting
compliments and seeing myself as anything other than a lesser person
than those around me, then I hardly think it's a romantic notion, it
hasn't even led me to great heights of creativity so others can gain
from what I went through, it just left me a bit of a mess and there's no
fucking romance in that :)

Believe it or not, I don't like talking about this.  It hurts very much,
but I just wanted to show that for some people there *is* a divide and
it has an effect which lasts way past the last day at school.  It may
not be geek/cool, as Erica said, I got it from cool kids and less cool
kids, but every single one of them made me feel like I didn't matter,
and it's not the greatest feeling to start your adult life with, let me
tell you.  And I'd much rather have been in an American teen movie any
day, where all the misfits looked like Molly Ringwald and always got the
boy in the end.
 
> And  more of a feeling of 'school spirit', which is bound to
> leave people feeling alienated if they weren't a bouncy cheerleader type or
> a grunting jock type. Do these people only exist in frats? You'll have to
> forgive me for being blinkered, the only view I have of american school
> life is Saved By the Bell. (but i do know all the words to the theme tune).

No, they exist in British boarding schools too.  My parents idea to stop
me getting bullied was to send me off to a "better" school, and if you
want school spirit, grunting jocks and bouncy cheerleaders, only worse
because they have money to flaunt in the face of the working class
scholarship kid, then I highly recommend seven years at one of these
fine institutions.  There were decent people, as there are anywhere, but
it wasn't really the answer for me, shall we say?  American teen TV
shows and films have a lot to answer for though, as everyone is
ridiculously cheery and happy and even the geeks get it all OK in the
end (see Joey and Pacey in Dawson's Creek, Molly Ringwald in Pretty in
Pink, Emilio Estevez in St Elmo's Fire, for example).  In fact Jen in
Dawson's Creek is the only person I can think of in an American teen
show who doesn't get ever get things going her way and isn't happy
within herself.  And that's a pretty poor average.  
 
On a completely separate and rather cheerier note, is anyone going to
All Tomorrow's Parties and willing to put me up/put up with me?  The
rumours of Lawrence Felt plus the confirmed existence of Stereolab,
Tindersticks, Yo La Tengo, Scott 4 and Gorkys (and others) are rather
tempting.  Anyone wanting to adopt me for the weekend (I'm actually
quite cheery when pissed, which if last Bowlie was anything to go by,
will be all the time, and don't wallow in self-pity, despite evidence to
the contrary above) please let me know.  Ideally someone with a credit
card who can wait a couple of weeks till I get paid before expecting a
cheque off me, though parents may be willing to lend me cash before that
if necessary.  I can once again offer lots of vodka (if the nice man at
National Express doesn't shatter it over the bus station again), a
selection of nice compilation tapes and culinary skills of sorts.  And
top cheerleading skills should anyone feel like blagging their way into
the football again...

Ailsa xx
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