Mean Girls
Every mean girl I know is a caricature of someone they know who bullied them or worse, a poor imitation of an onscreen mean girl whom they adored in their formative years. If it’s a fashion girl, she’s trying to be Miranda Priestly and failing woefully (please, you do not have the credentials) or she’s trying to be the fashion police armed with nothing but sass and vibes (again, your credentials are missing). If it’s a corporate girlie she’s trying to be Jessica Pearson from Suits, or whatever TikTok corporate baddie personality she’s adopted. The men in suits (also referred to as mean girls because that is a gender neutral term) have choked on all the rewatches of Glengarry Glen Ross and/or Mad Men, the tech bros can quote the Social Network and Succession by heart, the finance bros snort every scene from Industry like the coke in their veins, and so on and so forth.
Everyone is imitating someone, the girls are tussling hard trying to be the meanest girl on the block, struggling to be Elektra Abundance with zero electricity, no one is being themselves and I’m over here wondering when being a decent person went out of style. Who the graceful fuck is fighting with you people? I get letting a bitch have it when your patience has been tested beyond its limits but honey, all the time? You’re locked and loaded with nastiness all the time? Ho, you is mad at breakfast??? Come on now.
And yes yes yes, I get it. The *gestures at everything in general* is hell, I’m with you on that but girl, do you have to be hell 24/7? No, you don’t. That much cortisol cannot be good for you and I’m telling you this as someone who was mad ALL. THE. TIME. People are blindingly stupid, wilfully ignorant and incorrigibly obtuse. Especially people on the internet. Especially people in the comment sections on social media. On that we absolutely agree, you will get no objections from me. However, as a newly reformed girlie who chooses to laugh at the behaviour rather than feed the rage monster, I implore you to choose your peace and deploy your nukes wisely. If every time someone runs afoul of you, you unleash a diatribe, your attacks lose their power. The first time I watched a Real Housewife eviscerate someone, I was enthralled, the 15th time it was background noise and now, you couldn’t pay me to watch reality TV (Oh what, am I missing the meanness and the comebacks and the wig snatching? Am I missing the contrived drama and bad filler? Come off it)
My problem with all the alleged mean girls is not even the meanness, by all means be a bitch darling; my issue, is that they’re unqualified for the job they’re pretending to do. I’ve met maybe two people who were actual mean girls, like, genuinely derived joy from hurting people’s feelings, deliberately and unprovoked. There’s a word for those people - sociopaths. The mean girls today do a mean thing, and when people come at them and they immediately do a 180, snot crying and apologizing. Sweetie, I don’t care if the apology is fake, why are you capitulating to the outrage over your meanness? You mean to tell me your entire mean girl persona is being a poor caricature of a sociopath - someone who should be in a padded cell away from civilization - and you expect people not to get away from you as fast as they can? You expect whatever business you’re running not to take a hit? Did you think you were a nice person or what? *hurls very large tomatoes*
Bring back focus and purposeful reads, please. If you want to be a mean girl, stand ten toes in it. Hold your position even when people call you out - omg Noe, how can you say that? BABY IF YOU WANT TO BE MEAN FOR NO REASON, COMMIT! Ugh. I despise you wannabe villains. Did Regina George ever utter an apology? Did Miranda Priestly atone? Were your fave bitches ever sorry? No? Then why are you? Pick a side and stay there. You can either be mean with your chest and bear the consequences or you can remember the manners you were hopefully taught and act like a sensible person. You cannot be both mean and expectant of adoration and adulation. You cannot be both feared and beloved, you’re not an orgasm, you’re a person faced with a choice, make one and do it quickly, your pussyfooting is boring and you make me sick.