Competing With The Outsider - Memoir Poetry

Instructions

first time posting memoir poetry on scratch :) as someone who felt like an outcast their whole life, i always followed the usual tropes in y/a media. you probably know which ones: the main character is an outsider who is "not like other girls," doesn't fit in, etc. i used to be that way, and i used to think that the popular people in my grade would be "mean" by default - after all, didn't we learn that exact idea from mean girls, the pinnacle of high school media? i befriended an outsider last year who turned out to be a bad person. after i stopped talking to them, i began to get to know the popular students, and i realized that the y/a trope of "outcast = good, popular = bad" is the complete opposite, at least in my school. i also quit stem and realized that my interests were sort of "basic," but i'm learning to be okay with that. i found all of this to be extremely interesting and wanted to write about it. a lot of this piece is about my gender journey, about discovering that i'm cis after feeling like i was taught, in a way, to never act like a girl. while preparing my college applications this past fall, i was told that pursuing "less feminine" interests would lead me to be more unique and would get me into college. i wrote 53 drafts of my personal statement until i eventually settled on the topic of choosing my own interests, no matter how conventional they may be. i'm not following the crowd just for clout - i'm opening myself up to communities of amazing people. most of all, i'm learning to embrace girlhood again, in my own way. i wanted to raise awareness about common tropes in y/a media and how they are not always applicable in real life. i think the media forces us to view people one-dimensionally, which is something i've never been known to do. i find this to be inaccurate and often dangerous, as we victimize certain people and villainize others without even getting to know them. i'm taught to feel sorry for the person i knew who had no friends last year, even though they would never consider apologizing for what they did to me. i'm taught to hate the group of girls who took me under their wings, simply because they look conventional and therefore must follow the "mean girl" stereotype. while i focused this piece mostly on my own high school experience, it's also accurate to a lot of american media, and even to all of you in swc. disclaimer: i am not trying to villainize outsiders! i believe that there is plenty of gray area between good and bad, between having many friends and having no friends. my goal of writing this piece was to break down stereotypes and encourage three-dimensional thinking. mostly, though, i wrote this piece for myself. i wanted to give myself permission to express my identity in a way that makes me happy, rather than simply being who others want me to be.