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When I was younger, I used to wear superhero t-shirts to nearly every non-uniform day. I had a really cool TARDIS satchel and Captain America badges. It was safe to say I didn't give a fuck. And this lack of fucks carried on into high school - for about a month or so. It was the end of September, meaning I'd been at there for around 3 weeks and, apart from the bad highlights in my hair and my persistence in wearing sparkly black plastic headbands, everything was good. But it was also the time of my first non-uniform day in a 'grown-up' school. So, like usual, I rocked up in my Spider-Man tee and, even though I'd abandoned the TARDIS bag at this point, I'd picked up some pretty cool TARDIS Vans instead. I was happy. I was wearing stuff that I loved.But those few minutes of 'BITCHEZ LOOK AT MY AWESOME CLOTH' were over before you could say 'Stormageddon Dark Lord of all', because a big, bad, scary year 11 came up to me, laughed and called me 'weird'. That doesn't seem like a massive thing, but to a greasy, bespectacled 11-year-old, it was horrible. So I went home, picked out all of my now 'un-cool' t-shirts, and threw them to the back of my wardrobe. I went shopping that weekend and even made my mum buy me delicate little tank tops and jeggings (remember jeggings? They were the thing back in 2009) because that's what all my friends were wearing. I remember crying and asking why I couldn't like what all the other girls liked. What made watching Doctor Who 'un-cool' and listening to music that was way too old for you 'cool'?
For years I pretended to be somebody I wasn't. I took down all of my posters from my bedroom walls so that, when my friends came round, they wouldn't think I was weird too. I hung around with people who weren't really my friends. Well, they were my friends, but we had nothing in common. It was a forced and unnatural friendship. And when something that artificial begins to break down, people start to become nasty. I don't blame them, we were kids - we still are. But it wasn't until I realised that, that I actually found some people who were just as weird as I was. It's still sad, though, that it wasn't until year 11 that I regained my 'weirdness' and started adorning my tees again. Even if my new friends didn't like what I did, they cared. They cared about the things I was interested in. They didn't laugh, they asked questions. I was so confused. And then I realised that this is what friends should be like. And I can't be that bad, because I can't seem to get rid of them now.(Now, don't get me wrong, myself and the people I used to hang around with never actually maliciously fell-out over anything. We just had conflicting interests and ways of dealing with things.)
But this is just something I wanted to say. Embrace the weird-ness. Don't ever stop liking something just because somebody tells you it's not 'cool'. Gloves, capes, masks! Superheroes are cool, man. (If somebody knows where that quote is from, I'll give you a gold star) This whole idea is something I lightly touched on in my last post. I talked about how, thanks to the internet, this 'nerdy' stuff has become more mainstream and 'acceptable'. And, you know, I don't mind being labelled a 'nerd'. A nerd is somebody who is passionate about something. And, if you're not passionate about at least 1 thing, that means you're boring. And that means everyone is a nerd, apart from you - which makes you the weirdo.
So if you've ever made fun of someone for liking something 'un-cool'... well then, you're a dick.
R.
Just a small selection of my 'un-cool' t-shirts.
