When I was 12, I shaved my legs before going to a One Direction concert in case one of the boys wanted to go on a date after. Why are 12-year-olds today using retinol?
Over the past year, I have grown increasingly aware (and scared) of young girls using social media in ways I could’ve never imagined. It begs the question(s): Where did the awkward phase go? What happened to middle school bullies?
Now, trust me, I certainly don’t condone cyberbullying, or bullying of any kind for that matter. However, I’m a firm believer that bullying – or rather being bullied – builds such immense character. I was viciously attacked online as a child for simply existing, but damn, did it make me funny. I was bullied for my outfits, bullied for my makeup, bullied for not playing a sport, bullied for being a teacher’s pet, you name it. I’m propelled back to my somewhat blurry adolescence when Ask.fm was all the rage. It was an anonymous question-asking app popularized when I was in middle school, circa 2013. That is literally the worst time for something so heinous to be so popular. And we ate it up.
I will never forget someone sending an anonymous message telling me to “put down the breadsticks, fatty.”
I wish that person knew how profound and utterly hilarious that statement is. Granted, at the time, I bawled my eyes out and ran to YouTube to frantically search “ab workouts,” “guaranteed 6-pack abs,” and things of the like. Truthfully, I didn’t even eat breadsticks like that. I don’t know where they got that idea. All I know is that I hated working out, I never got abs, and I started packing salads for lunch. Nothing has changed since then, really. And the salads weren’t good either.
But this age was all about self-expression and self-exploration. If my mom told me my outfit was “unflattering,” as she’d say, I didn’t care, nor did I change. I was my own person. I made my own rules. I was a bulky pre-teen dealing with the confusion of puberty and the embarrassment of having to change in front of my peers in the locker room for gym class. Teen Spirit deodorant haunts me in my dreams for that very reason.
My favorite hobby was rummaging through my mom’s makeup drawers, talking to the mirror like I was talking to my non-existent YouTube subscribers. I decided to wear one of my makeup looks to school one day. My mom’s makeup was bright orange on my Casper the Ghost complexion. My eyebrows could be confused for caterpillars, and my eyeshadow could’ve let me say, “You should see the other guy.” The giggles and whispers of girls were so loud as I walked through the hallway. I don’t blame them.
By 7th grade, I was invested in Twenty One Pilots, a somewhat grunge, pop-punk duo that turned glorified slam poetry into songs. This was a divergence from my typical One Direction-listening self. It was a new me. I begged my mom for shiny high-top Doc Martin boots to fit in with this new indie aesthetic I was toying with. Why she ever said yes is beyond me, but I’m glad she did. I was wearing shiny Doc Martins and excessive winged eyeliner to get a hot school lunch with a carton of milk before going to my pre-algebra class. I was so mysterious. So threatening. I wasn’t like the other girls. I had taste.
These cringy, awkward experiences allowed me to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. I never listened to my mom because she was always right. But she let me figure that out for myself.
Though I existed in and got inspiration from many online spheres growing up, I fear the glory days of the internet are long gone. The recent “redefinition” of virality and social media has, in my opinion, ruined what it means to be a kid – we now post for our audiences in endless cycles of consumerism with little to no critical thinking skills. They sip from bright-colored chalices of social status priced at $40 while wearing Lululemon crop tops and Dior lip gloss. They cherry-pick from the endless selection of Drunk Elephant products that sit atop the bathroom counter. Instead of young girls getting the latest pop culture news from J-14 magazine or Tiger Beat, they learn about how to reverse aging skin at 12 years old from 25-year-old TikTok influencers pumped with Botox.
Last week, I stopped into the Sephora that’s been hastily crammed into a corner of the local Kohl’s. It was around 3 pm, the prime after-school hour. I wove in and out of the aisles with tunnel vision and a budget, but the clamor of girls’ voices stopped me in my tracks.
“Wait, I heard this primer really blurs your pores.”
“Oh my God, I need this vitamin C serum to brighten my skin.”
They couldn’t have been older than 11.
I immediately thought of a recent Dove campaign, called #TheFaceOf10, that attempts to challenge this idea of premature maturing. The video starts with a compilation of young girls in home videos, dancing, twirling, swimming, blowing bubbles – being kids. The ad then morphs into a vertical orientation, scrolling from video to video. These young girls sit in front of the camera discussing their skincare needs, exclaiming how much they love the newest viral trend or product. Why did we let this become the new norm?
And I’ve come across these videos myself, too.
“Run, don’t walk,” they say.
“Get ready with me to go to my BFF’s 12th birthday party,” perhaps.
And so my heart aches.
I so desperately remember the feeling of wanting to be older, to be more mature, to be taken more seriously as a young girl. I see myself in them. But then, just 11 years ago, we didn’t have nearly the amount of access to the world that young girls have today. It was innocent. It was pure. It was appropriate (to an extent).
“Slow down,” my mother used to tell me. “Don’t wish it away.”
I should’ve listened to her. She was always right.
Social media spoonfeeds the intricacies of self-exploration and self-acceptance to young girls today. Is it because teenage heartthrob boybands are a thing of the past? Is it because Nickelodeon and Disney aren’t appealing to young kids anymore? Is it because the third-place theory is obsolete because of social media? Truthfully, I’m unsure. But the transition from female childhood to adulthood is now a binary construct with little in between besides longing to be propelled to the next chapter of life and a world encouraging them to do so.
I just want to let girls be girls. We all turn out just fine, anyway.
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