laleia

Okay, so I saw a comment on tumblr the other day that said something along the lines of The experiences of teens on TV aren't the experiences I had as a teenager and that basically sums up my reaction to this episode.

Despite growing up in middle-class American suburbs (which is practically the only story that TV shows bother to tell anymore), I was not your typical teenager. I didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, have sex, have relationships, go to parties, go clubbing, hang out with friends for extended periods of time ... I didn't do any of the things that "typical" teenagers do, nor did I care about the things that "typical" teenagers care about. (I don't even listen to music, which shocks people who meet me.) And yes, this sounds like your typical ~I was different~ complaint, except here's the thing.

I didn't realize I was different.

I grew up in this super-weird bubble where I knew that teens did a lot of crazy things because TV shows and Internet told me so but it wasn't until senior year until I was like ... Huh, these kids that I know and talk to every day actually go to parties on the weekends and drink and do drugs. I mean, the apogee of my teenage rebellion was refusing to start studying for SATs six months in advance.

So a lot of times, when I see TV shows portraying typical teenager behavior, I'm a bit bemused/amused. And of course, all the teenager ~drama/bullying/MeanGirls-esque~ stuff that happens on TV is also stuff that never happened to me in high school although I gather from my friends that they did indeed happen. I don't think I could name the popular kids in my grade for you. The only ones I ever bothered to know are the ones who were in my classes, the AP/Honors kids (although I hated being in Regular classes, or even in Honors classes instead of AP classes if there was an alternative, and in retrospect this was in large part because I didn't know those people well and because our high school priorities were different and really weird odd-duck behavior on my part that was completely understood and accepted by the people who'd been in my classes for years, was probably less so by people that didn't know me and hadn't been in my Honors/AP classes for forever).

I mean, to put my strange high school life in perspective, until senior year, I never went out with my friends. I didn't hang out with them out of school. It didn't even occur to me to hang out with them out of school. This is in part because I was a super-introvert, I guess, and I think also in part because the whole concept of "friends hanging out" isn't really a model that my parents ever thought to normalize. Also, I maintain that my best friends in elementary school completely traumatized me and fostered a dislike/distaste for developing close bonds with people because close bonds are things that can be used against you. There's a reason my friends in high school weren't really ones that I was close enough to that losing their friendship would hurt me in any way.

BUT I DIGRESS.

Regarding the...

Prom episode of Glee

Okay so my point is, I found this episode bemusing/amusing because I didn't give a shit about Prom. And I find the idea that Junior Prom is so important to be utterly ridiculous. (But then, our school didn't have a Junior Prom and Senior Prom; we had one prom and only seniors could run to be Prom King and Queen.)

I went to Senior Prom because it was the only dance I went through my entire high school career, and I felt like I should go to a dance at some point. It was a waste of money, though (seriously, $60/ticket is stupid), and I don't know a single one of my friends who enjoyed themselves there.

(I mean, ... Prom was also awkward because I went with a friend so I had to pay my own ticket, and we carpooled with our other friends who had recently broken up but had already gotten tickets so they were going together anyways but all they did was fight with each other, PLUS I wanted to try out this dancing thing but none of my friends were interested, and it was ALL just super awkward and weird. High school was an awkward time, okay? I feel that my best non-awkward moments in high school were in all my honors/AP classes because it was there that I could literally command a boy to get on his knees to apologize for offering insult, and he would. And he did. Also I hit people with paperback books when they said sexist things or insulted me, which is not something you can do after you grow up. God, thinking back to high school is making me feel all awkward inside, like I'm reliving it. Like my whole friend/date to Prom thing ... ugh)

So my point is, I don't even think the people running for Prom King/Queen at my school gave a shit about it (but who knows, they could have; I never talked to those people) so I was mostly rolling my eyes at how much these kids cared about their Junior Prom (which is not even something unrealistic, I recently had a talk with a friend about how important Prom was to her; she was talking about how my sister was missing out, skipping Senior Prom).

But.

That bit when Artie asked Brittany to prom, and Kurt got stars in his eyes with his, "Prom Proposal...?" ... that I understood.

Because that is something I thought was adorable in high school. I didn't think Prom was anything important, but the proposals people came up with... I'm sure there are marriage proposals that weren't as romantic.

There was the guy who asked the girl out when he was participating in the "Prom Fashion Show" in front of the whole school. The guy who ordered a pancake for the girl with "PROM?" on it when we went out to brunch for Senior Skip Day. The guy who marched in a class of 5-year-olds, each holding a sign with a word, writing out "Will you go to prom with me?" (Long story short, our high school had a daycare that the teachers' kids went to, and "Child Development" was an elective you could take where eventually you ended up working with those kids. And the girl in question worked with those kids specifically.)

So who knows. Maybe if some guy had asked me out in an equally imaginative way, I would have looked towards Prom with more enthusiasm ... but I doubt it. I'm just not a Prom person.

First episode of Shanghai Rush

So Shanghai Rush is like a cheap, low-budget version of Amazing Race that's Shanghai-only and is on DramaFever.

And the thing is, because it's slightly low-budget, it feels incredibly creepily voyeuristic. Real reality TV shows have so much editing going on, I understand and accept that the story I'm seeing is not the story as it played out, but the story that the editors in the cutting studio (or whatever it's called) felt would appeal to me. But when the quality is slightly low-budget, it feels more ... real.

So like there was this one interview with a guy and girl, and the girl's talking about how they went on a few dates but it didn't work out so now they're just super-close friends. Just friends! Nothing more than that! Right? And the guy just looks at her, and I roll my eyes and think that he obviously doesn't just want to be friends if there's an alternative, but how can I know that? I don't know anything about him! I'm making assumptions about him based on what the tv editors want me to guess, but because it's not as high-quality as Amazing Race, it feels like there's a greater chance that I'm right, and that's creepy.

(Also, there's these other two guys who started studying Chinese in Shanghai recently, and in their interview, when talking about how well they thought they'd do, and one guy talks about how the other "takes direction well" and my mind immediately went in the gutter because fandom has ruined me.)

In conclusion, I miss China.