Fuck Your Big, Bad Selves:
Teenage Misfit Revisionism

It's funny. No one ever says they wanted to fit in when they were in high school, do they? No one ever says they had some good friends, dressed like everyone else, and kept their odd tastes hidden, Do they? No. Everyone you talk with about their adolescence was terribly misunderstood for one reason or another. Everyone wore their fucking hearts on their sleeves and had a miserable time because of it.

If I hear one more of you insecure fucks talk about how much of a loner you were in high school, I'm going to figure out a way to go back in time and kill your parents before they have the chance to meet and spawn your miserable bones. All your talk about troubled youth is obvious over-compensation for a lackluster adulthood punctuated by small-minded artistic conquests; small conquests like having your etchings on display at that coffeehouse your boyfriend's uncle owns.

But take comfort that you're not alone (or does that defeat your originality goal?). Everyone's doing it. Revisionism, that is. It's the latest intellectual buzzword. Holocaust Revisionism. Disney's America Revisionism. And if people aren't discussing modern Revisionist platforms, they're trying to set the record straight from past revisionism (Indian rights, accurate accounts of slavery, etc.) Welp, I don't fucking care--they can battle it out on Crossfire.

It's the other, more commonplace Revisionism that drives me fucking insane. And so many of you participate that everyone turns a blind eye. It's what I call Teenage Misfit Revisionism.

I'm willing to admit it. Growing up, I was a plain-Jane prick who wanted nothing more than to find the cool party every weekend, talk with pretty girls, drink Busch from a warm keg, and try to get laid. Of course, I never got laid, rarely found the party, and usually sat in someone's living room watching bad horror movies. Conformity? Fuck yes. Bring it on, baby. Call it what you want--I don't care. At least I'm honest--and unashamed--about my history.

I didn't dress in black. I didn't look like a freak. People didn't think I was strange, or crazy, or angry, or rebellious, or queer, or anything else that's fashionable to have been. I wasn't a loner, and I wasn't trying to be different--I was trying to be the same. I desperately wanted to fuck a pretty girl and not be ignored. Period.

I wasn't beat up for being the loser. I wasn't laughed at, or ridiculed, or held up as the object of mockery. I wasn't escaping through my poetry. I wasn't dreaming of living on the road with Kerouac. I wasn't shut up in my bedroom boo-hoo'ing because I had no friends.

I was, quite frankly, nothing special.

There are 2 archetypes of you fucks out there: the LONER and the LOSER. I'm equally sick of both of you.

The loner portrays him or herself as having suffered because of being so different than the mainstream. "They used to laugh at me because I wore all black!" I overhear at a bar. "Jeez, now people look at you weird if you wear bright colors!" Your friend agrees--you were BOTH desperate teenage fuckheads. And so it goes...too cool for the time...ahead of your days...mature beyond your years...too subversive for your own good.

To the former teenage loner oddballs: I implore you to cut out your tongue and shove it up the deepest hole on your body. You didn't like Bauhaus in '83--you like Bon Jovi. And you didn't read Anais Nin at 14--you read V.C. Andrews. So stop lying to yourself and everyone around you--your friends are embarrassed to be humoring you so much.

On the other hand, the LOSER silently begs for sympathy by putting himself down. It's the same tactic as the guy who talks about having a small dick when he's got at least the average amount of cock. "Because I didn't play sports," he says, "and didn't want to date rape cheerleaders, everyone thought I was a faggot. If it wasn't for my poetry, I never would've made it through being a teenager." This asshole already knows that the LONERS are full of shit, so he takes the opposite angle.

To the former teenage LOSER PUNCHING BAGS: you're STILL full of shit. You were an everyday pussy playing Dungeons & Dragons when you were 13. You didn't get beat up any more than every other person who has a big brother or a drinking father. Your escape was called "college," buster, where you re-created your life with that extra dash of tragedy.

Why can't everyone just admit it? In 1985, at the age of 16, I liked Rush, King Crimson and Tangerine Dream. In fact, I LOVED Rush, and hearing an old Rush song on the radio still gets my toe tapping. Ditto for the occasional Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd song (Waters, only, please.) And if my memory wasn't shot, I'd recall favorite TV shows and movies for you. They weren't, and still aren't, PBS & Fellini. Rather, more like Moonlighting & Indiana Jones. Sound like someone you know? Perhaps your big, bad, punk-rock-and-proud self?

But sometime around 1985, I also got my first Replacements tape, along with Big Black, Agent Orange, and Bauhaus. Can you guess who knew that my friends and I were listening to that crazy music? NO ONE. We didn't liberty spike our hair; we didn't even dye our hair. We didn't put safety pins in our boots, or paint our jackets with Anarchy symbols. We just weren't punk fucking rockers. We were basic teenagers who looked and acted like basic dumb teenagers. We didn't have MTV to compel us to join the Alternative Nation. We didn't have Details to tell us how to make our mall clothing look hip.

I didn't want to be different then, and I don't need to be different now. To see me on the street, you wouldn't look twice (well, except for the occasional "wow, that guy is Super Macho!" that I hear whispered behind my back) and you wouldn't look twice at me sitting at the bar. Secure in my paradigm of superiority, I walk amongst you desperate fucks unnoticed. Good for me.

So, will you please shut the fuck up now? Stop telling me about your misunderstood youth? We all did it, friends, and it sucked. But it was unremarkable in EVERY way, even in its unremarkableness. Got it? Just stop trying to be special through re-invention. We all know that you're absolutely and positively full of shit.