Hello! — or as I would normally say, “‘Sup, bitch.” I’m a girl in high school on any major teenage television show, but I look like I’m at the age where I’m flattered when bouncers card me. You don’t have a problem with that, do you? It’s just that real teenagers are all pimply and oily and icky, and it’s not super plausible one of them would get the privilege of losing their virginity to the also-adult quarterback in his truck under the stars as mid-2000s indie pop plays to a crescendo.
You may have noticed that I’m stunningly beautiful. No one among my onscreen cast of ethnically and sexually diverse friends seems to think much of it, or even notice it. That may be because they also look like how vain HGTV stars describe themselves in their college glory days, which explains why our devastatingly unreciprocated feelings seem to only go rejected for a few months until we get makeovers — which, because of the whole stunningly-beautiful thing, usually only entail some extra eyeshadow — or say something quirky and original, hinting to our crushes that we’re protagonist material and they’d better get on board before my season arc if they want suddenly far more screen time.
This one girl I bully — but like in a funny way because I’m also a really really kind person with a good soul, she gets it I think — probably would have sold for like 500 elephants back in medieval times but because she’s kind of awkward we say she’s ugly. Keeping up?
This is the Information Age, after all, so I have a 4.0 average. You’re kind of supposed to assume I hold onto that 4.0 throughout the first four seasons, during my pregnancy, stint in a mental hospital, parents’ divorce, mental breakdown, and boyfriend’s move to North Korea. Is that cool? I also need you to understand that like the bald eagle, I am nocturnal. You will never, ever see me so much as cracking open a textbook to study, or even writing papers, and I only take tests when graduation is coming up and I need an excuse for a nervous breakdown and suddenly I realize school is something that is very important to me. I do all my work in the middle of the night, which is why you’ll also never see me sleeping, only waking up frazzled as my alarm buzzes and an Avril Lavigne song plays over my scramble out of bed.
The bald eagle isn’t nocturnal? Honestly, I wouldn’t know. Every time I walk into class my brash and ethnic best friend and I just whisper about boys and how to attain them for a few minutes and then class ends! Pretty cool. Unless I go to a performing arts school, in which case I completely lack hobbies or interests aside from singing, acting, and hijinks with my pals.
That reminds me! I have a ton of interests, from singing to art to lacrosse to singing to having a boyfriend to developing a short-term eating disorder to being surprise prom queen! At least, usually a boyfriend. I’m only gay if I’m on a specifically gay show. Look, that sounds bad, I know, but if teens don’t want to see two ladies holding hands my job is to give them their ten-minute choreographed boy-girl on-campus sex scenes and not shove our progressive views down their throats. Unless this IS a gay show, in which case my hobbies include being gay and crying about being gay! Despite my upper class upbringing, whiteness, aforementioned gorgeousness and 4.0, this is really hard for me. Nonetheless, I immediately find a hot girlfriend even though we live in some shithole somewhere in the Midwest.
If I’m nonwhite, though, I’m either a diversity hire or being afflicted by gang violence, which many people don’t know is a huge problem where I’m from. Which is, like, Nebraska, probably? (???) Representation is so important!
In the end, I love my life. Some bitch tortures my entire high school career, but she ends up either my best friend or receding into the background when I get that full-ride scholarship.
Isn’t it crazy how many colleges are willing to offer you hundreds of thousands of dollars and/or Vogue internships are available for high school seniors who can pull off scarves?