Sinister: dont want acceptance, dont want tradition

[Walkn10 at xxx.com]

I don't know...in a way TV and movies have done a fairly slipshod job 
portraying the American high school experience, or at least MY high school 
experience.  Maybe it was just the school I went to (not exactly Phi Beta 
Kappa material) but there was a clear distinction between the "in" crowd 
(sports players, preppies) and the "outcasts" (punk kids, the brains) that 
was noticeable from the start.  The rich kids and sports stars ran the school 
and individual classes and that apparently gave them free reign to make 
everyone else's life hell for their amusement.  It was pretty sickening to a 
15-year-old kid who had just graduated from a Catholic middle school where 
everyone knew everyone and the whole school went to everyone's birthday 
parties, etc.  
For my first two years in Northeast High I was a huge punk rock dwarf with 
Nirvana emblems on every flat surface and Fugazi stickers all over my locker; 
and as a result I was quickly tormented on a daily basis.  They also disliked 
the fact that I hadn't gone to the "normal" middle school which was (and 
still is) the roughest school in Maryland with regard to drug arrests (yes, 
there are 12-year-old crack pushers) and class disruptions.  I made the 
soccer team freshman year but all that served to do was to give the jocks and 
preps easy access to me because I had to feign "oneness" with them for the 
sake of the team and whatnot.  It was kind of fascinating because I could 
actually see the inner working of the "popular" machine, but most of the time 
I was just fighting not to get locked in the bathroom by the other 20 kids on 
the team.  By the beginning of sophmore year I realized how big of a farce 
the whole social scene was so I just removed myself from it as a whole and 
sat by myself at lunch and read books and started a band.  Eventually I got 
tired of being a hermit so I made some new friends and for whatever reason 
the "in" crowd was now more than willing to except me now that I knew what an 
arbitrary bunch of arses they were (not to sound snobby but I think my band 
had something to do with it because we were the most popular act in town). 
Needless to say I wasn't going to get burned twice, but it was a sweet 
revenge.
With that sappy story in mind, I think Hollywood has actually been alot nicer 
to the cliques than they deserve.  Anyone who went to a US high school and 
found themselves on the wrong side of the game can tell how depraved and evil 
most of these kids are.  On TV the it appears the whole school is one big 
family united in the promulgation of school spirit.  I had friends beaten up 
for wearing Marilyn Manson shirts (this was three years ago...just before he 
got hugely popular and these self-same jocks took to wearing his picture), I 
had brand new hats crumpled and thrown in toilets simply because the preppies 
found it offensive that I didn't think they were funny or smart, people had 
car windows shot out because they made fun of someone's girlfriend, etc.  I'm 
not saying all this because it warped me for life and whatnot but its just 
somewhat distressing that the scenes of American high schools that people 
across the world are seeing involve actions and feelings that are largely, if 
not totally absent from reality.  
Like I said, maybe this doesn't happen to this degree everywhere, but I'll 
bet its pretty close.  Signing off...


Steve C>
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