Dear Little Girls: One Direction is Bad for You

Is One Direction a shitty band?  Yes.  Are their songs catchy to the point that I probably know all the words to "What Makes You Beautiful"?  Yes.  Yes I do.

I like pop music.  I'm not about to apologize for singing along to Demi Lovato.  And errbody loves Carly Rae anyway (and if you don't let's not hang out ever).  And there's a LOT of pop music that has terrible lyrics.  Katy Perry's ET, for example, is about a woman who straight up says she "wan[ts] to be a victim, ready for abduction."  This is also a terrible message for twelve-year-old girls, because that is not love, that is Stockholm Syndrome.  There is a difference.

But I'm talking to you about One Direction, because they are crazy mondo popular with the tween set right now in a way only matched by Twilight.  So let's dissect their two most popular songs, "Insecurity Is Sexy" and "I Love You For Unnamed Thing/Reason."

1.  "What Makes You Beautiful"
"You're insecure
Don't know what for
You're turning heads when you walk through the do-oh-or
Don't need make-up
To cover up
Being the way that you are is en-oh-ough"

Okay.  So far, so good.  A girl who's pretty but doesn't know it.  Typical teenage girl, honestly.  This type of thing goes on for about half the song, until we get to the money lyrics:

"You don't know you're beautiful
THAT's what makes you beautiful."

Listen, little girls.  This is a catch-22.  It is perfectly okay to wear make-up and know you look pretty. It is also perfectly okay to not put effort into your appearance and act all DGAF and what not.  But thinking you're ugly attracts all sorts of the WRONG guys.  Guys worth your time appreciate some good old-fashioned confidence.  And being pretty but not thinking you're pretty is a shitty reason for a boy to like you.  Being insecure about how you look is NOT beautiful.

Insecurity as sexiness keeps you in a place of subservience to boys who are scared of strong, confident women, and those kinds of boys are beneath you.  OH DID I JUST FEMINIST ANALYZE THE CRAP OUT OF ONE DIRECTION????  Yes.

Don't listen to One Direction for dating advice.  All their hairs are stupid anyway.
Moving on.


2.  "One Thing"
The chorus is as follows:
"So get out, get out, get out of my head
And fall into my arms instead
I don't, I don't, I don't know what it is
But I need that one thing
And you've got that one thing."

First of all, these lyrics are crazy dumb.  Good, glad we got that out of the way.  Secondly, "I like you but I don't know why" is like the worst of all terrible pick-up lines.  NEVER FALL FOR IT.  There should be something about you that he can point to, that he likes, that is concrete.  Otherwise there is no basis for an actual connection.

"Now I'm climbing the walls
But you don't notice at all"

WHAT.  IS HE STALKING YOU NOW.  GET OUT.  PEEPING TOMS ARE NOT CUTE.

"Something's gotta give now
Cuz I'm dying just to know your name"

Okayyyyyy.  Hoooolllllddddd up.  This dude is in love with you.  Right?  You're all he can think about.  And yet.  This guy.  Does not.  Even know.  Your fucking name.

(Disclaimer:  At this point I'm not even aiming this article at 12-year-olds so I'm gonna fucking swear OHFUCKINGKAY????)

(Second disclaimer:  songwriters, this is really on you, isn't it?  Specifically, record company stiffs who write these songs AIMED at these 12-year-olds)

What is the definition of love?  What is required for a good relationship?  These boys, they don't love you.  They will sex you because you're pretty and then when there is no connection they will inevitably leave you.

Be you, do you, be happy and proud and confident and KNOW you're pretty and KNOW you have all sorts of things to offer besides this mysterious, undefinable, BULLSHIT "one thing" that doesn't even exist.

Also, seriously.  You'll see it when you're older.  But their hair?  SO stupid.

Quick Note

Going over my posts about Todd Akin, I decided to delete them.  I realized it offered no new perspective that hadn't been said in a more eloquent way by someone else, and if I'm really going to keep a blog I should at least make sure it offers an original point of view - a reason to read my work instead of someone else's.

So enjoy reading about hipsters, TV shows, and super old works of literature.  You can't find this kind of thing anywhere else on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being Weird Doesn't Make You Interesting

I went to a college party last night.  I know, I know.  You guys are super jealous.  Well, I had two revelations.  Both of which I'd had before.  So I guess it was like re-revelations.  I get re-revelations so many more times than first-time revelations it's ridiculous.  Like "oh right, I hate the way my breath smells after a cigarette" or "don't go see a children's movie on a Saturday afternoon" (ParaNorman was awesome; the screaming children were not).

So the two re-revelations were as follows:  I am too old for college parties already, and being weird doesn't make you interesting.  I'm not going to talk about the first re-revelation because, well, I've already said everything I'm going to say.  But let's talk about the second one.

You ever hear of this college USC?  Good at football, located in LA.  I'm being annoying.  Anyway, I got a cousin at the film school there, so I went down to see what all the talk was about and also I like my cousin because he's a cool guy who knows how to throw a cool party.  I had some good times, some laughs, maybe a Bud Light or two.  I don't like crowds or pretending to care about someone I just met, but you know.  I'm too old for college parties.

I mention the film school thing because it gives you an idea of the type of crowd you might find there. Mostly white, a little hipster, loves movies/TV/internetz.  People who just, like, HAVE to express themselves (like bloggers, so I felt right at home!  Hurray!).  And while walking to say hello to my brother and my cousin at one point, the button on the back of my pants got caught on the dress that one of these fine gentlemen had chosen to wear.

It's the weekend before school.  You're trying to make a statement.  I get it.  But when I first saw Dude in a Dress (trying as hard as possible to look like a dude in a dress - seriously, not a cross dresser, just this dude in a dress), I thought... nothing.  Literally.  I might have thought he was overdressed.  Like, I wouldn't wear that dress to this occasion, personally.  Wasn't really my style, either.  I was sort of planning on spending the evening never talking to this dude because at some point the conversation was going to end up being about why he's wearing a dress, and I so just did not care.  There is literally no single answer to why that dude was wearing a dress that I would find remotely interesting.

But alas, my pants got caught on his dress while walking by and I don't even know how but it happened.  So I say "I'm sorry" and fix that problem.  He turns to me and asks, "Why did you grab my dress?"

"I didn't.  I got caught.  I'm sorry."
"What's wrong with my dress?  Why would you grab my dress?"
"I... didn't."
"What do you have against my dress?  Why would you do that?"
Then this girl comes over.  They must be friends because she's wearing a flower bonnet.

A FUCKING FLOWER BONNET.  Oh Jesus I am so bored by these fashion choices.  "Look I'm different!" it tries to scream.  "Great, I give zero shits," I silently reply.

"She grabbed my dress," he tells her.
"No, I didn't, my pants got caught-"
"Why did you grab his dress?" she asks.
"I didn't."
"What's wrong, are you biased against his dress?  Why do you hate his dress?"
(Because it's fucking ugly.)
"What do you have against his dress?"
"Why would you grab my dress?"
"What's wrong with you?  Who does that?"
"Why are you harassing me?"
"Why are you harassing him?"

At this point her stupid face combined with her stupid flower bonnet make me not want to look in her direction.  So I end up facing this dude's chest.  Whose nipple is on full display.  Because of all things, he picked a dress that didn't even fit right.  Seriously, at least wear a dress that covers you up.  AT LEAST DO THAT.

"Why are you staring at his chest?" she aggressively asks, and there's a pause, like they have emerged victorious in making me feel like such shit.  THE MOVIE BULLY CAME OUT THIS SUMMER COME ON NOW.
"Well, this has been so much fun," I say, finally thinking of some response that (I hope) let's them know that I judge them for being boring dickshits just as much as they judge me for... whatever terrible thing it is that I did.

Because really, your dress and your flower bonnet are not interesting.  They're boring.  The reason I'm talking about this at all is because of how cunty you two acted during an unlucky chance encounter when, if I had had it my way, I wouldn't have talked to either of you at all.  Because your outfits conveyed one thing:  you think you're fascinating because you wear something "different," which means your grasp on how society works is juvenile and simplistic and also I hate you, you pretentious, boring fucks.

Being weird.  Does NOT.  Make you interesting.  It makes you weird.  Weird is not good or bad, unless it is combined with boring.  Boring and weird is quite possibly one of the worst combinations ever.  So take pride in making people uncomfortable, because there's precious little else you have to offer.

You stupid, flower-bonnet-wearing, dressy hipster douchebags.


Thank you.  End of rant.

The Problem with Annie's Boobs

I watched the first two seasons of Community because it was great television.  As far as I've heard, the third season was also the bee's knees.  I stopped watching because I was tired of the show's attitude that the only reason they're not popular is because America is stupid.  It's insulting, and there's plenty of smart shows on TV who manage to put out great content without being insulting to those who simply don't watch their show.  It's juvenile, at best.

You've heard all the great things about the show.  Shirley, for one, is one of the best characters on television today.  Troy is amazing and I want to lick his face because Donald Glover.  Britta is also fantastic, an incredibly multi-dimensional character that I want to be best friends with.  The show is creative and fun and comes up with really compelling stuff.  Part of the issue is that I think meta jokes are funny once in a while, but can grow old very quickly.  Community as a show disagrees with me on that score, and that's fine.

But one of the BIG problems I had with this show is what they did to Annie's character between seasons 1 and 2.  In season 1, Annie was a freshman in college getting over an adderall addiction because of the stress she put on herself.  She wanted to be a top achiever and was type A to the point of being OCD.  Annie's character was going to grow, loosen up, become an adult.  She had a really beautiful coming-of-age story to tell, and I was excited to watch it.

Between seasons 1 and 2, Dan Harmon realized that she had boobs, GREAT boobs, and that the fan boys on the internet love boobs.  And thus began the destruction of what could have been a fascinating character on television.

Because 9 out of 10 storylines concerning Annie now had something to do with how sexy she was.  The weird relationship with Jeff.  Troy and Abed staring.  A monkey named "Annie's Boobs" (which, under different circumstances, could have been really funny if I wasn't already so annoyed).  Hell, Dan Harmon even said he created scenes of Annie running so the internet could make gifs of it.  They took a multi-dimensional character with a coming-of-age story to tell and turned her into a sex object.

Now I know she still had other storylines.  Her relationship with Pierce, her relationship with her parents, even her future came up once and a while.  But compare that to the sheer number of storylines or jokes about how sexy this nineteen-year-old character was.  As a girl who started off relating to Annie and has no interest in being a sex object, I found this depressing.

I love Katrina Bowden's character on 30 Rock, whose main punchline is also how fuckable she is.  The difference?  One character shows up rarely, every few episodes, and that was ALWAYS the joke.  The other is a major character who was supposed to be well-rounded and fully-formed and THEN got degraded to a sex joke.

And maybe in a way that's Community commenting on how, in this society, even a girl with that much potential is going to be marginalized if her boobs are nice enough.  Or maybe it's just them contributing to the problem.

Annie could have been so much more than her boobs.  And for a show that prides itself on being so smart, that sure as hell was a damn stupid move.

UPDATE

There is an animated movie called ROMEO AND JULIET:  SEALED WITH A KISS about two seals who fall in love despite their parents' objections.

I bet their deaths in the end are epic.

Romeo & Juliet is Overrated and This is Why

Juliet Capulet is a dumb beezy.

I mean, Romeo is dumb too.  But in the beginning I feel bad for him.  He's heartbroken because this chick Rosalind would rather join a convent than marry him - like, she'd literally take NO SEX EVER before she marries Romeo - and that totally blows.  Romeo, I feel for you.  That's gotta hurt.

So his boi Mercutio, who's kind of a douchebag but then again he's an Italian teenage boy so it's chill - convinces him to sneak into the home of his family's MORTAL ENEMIES.  Like, these families HATE each other.  Oh my god you know this part already.  But this is important so I'm reiterating.

So Romeo sneaks in and kaBLAM he falls in love AT FIRST SIGHT with some 13 year old beezy.  Soo that heartache concerning Rosalind took all of like a half hour to get over.  This boy's love track record blows.  Moving on.

At first he's all "OMG she's super cute" and then he finds out that's JULIET CAPULET THE DAUGHTER OF THE ENEMY so he's all "oh shit looks like I'm in love with the daughter of my father's enemy now oh well" so then he goes over to her and flirts with her and she's all "omg he's super cute" and she, being kind of slutty for such a young age (it's called college, sweetie, you can wait), makes out with a dude whose name she doesn't even know.

And then later she finds out it's ROMEO who SNUCK IN EVEN THOUGH HE IS THE ENEMY.  Like, the dude snuck into his family's enemy's house and made out with the 13 year old daughter.

Honey, you got played.

So she should be all sorts of pissed but instead she's all "oh who cares it's just a name I know he loves me" and luckily for her she turns out to be right.

OH WAIT.  FOUR DAYS LATER SHE DIES BECAUSE LOVE.  So maybe a healthy dose of taking a step back and thinking things through isn't like the worst thing that could ever happen.

And as evidenced by Romeo's crazy fast getting-over-Rosalind thing that happened FIVE DAYS BEFORE HE DIED BECAUSE LOVE, all they had to do was take a step back and remember "oh right I'm a teenager it's hormones also Italy."  They're confusing love with infatuation.  I bet they would hate each other so hard after a year.

Like, let's see what that marriage looks like.  None of their kids would have the same daddy (because love all the time), and Romeo would be on a first-name basis with every whore in... Venice?  Is that where they are?  Whatever.  (Also because love all the time.)

And then we get modern updates where Romeo & Juliet live in the end which is dumb because their deaths are the BEST part of the play.  When I read it and I was like GOOD DIE YOU STUPID STUPIDHEADS.  Like what's a couple teenage death when it means the end of hostilities between feuding families?  Looking at you TayTay Swift.

Anyway there are like way better love stories that Shakespeare wrote so we can all do better than get hung up on stupid teenagers killing themselves because they're emotionally unstable.

End Of Thought.

Holy Moly

This is my first time keeping track of who reads my blog.  I'm international!  That's pretty darn cool.

I mean, it's not a LOT of people, but I can legit say I don't know anyone in Russia, so... I guess people I'm not related to read this thing too.  Thanks, guys!  Mucho love.  That's espanol for you're all awesome.

An Unoriginal Thought on Celebrity Gossip

I don't care about who's dating whom.



No, stop, I know you've heard this one!  And it's not a new idea, and what's the harm since they're never gonna know you, and everybody is guilty of gossip (except those assholes who make you feel bad about it, which, ugh, amirite?) so who cares.

And I used to be ALL UP ON THAT.  I loved celebrity gossip.  I loved taking sides in Jennifer vs Angelina (hard to feel bad for Brad in this case).  I loved seeing how craycray Tom Cruise was gonna act next.  Ohmygod how stupid is KStew for smoking pot in public?  Britney shaved her headddd and Miley is the next Britneyyyy and some other celebrity got caught with naked pictures and then pretended they weren't her LOLOL Lindsay Lohan enough said.

I'm not gonna go for the "it's ruining their lives" argument because that argument sucks.  They didn't have to be famous, they didn't have to be trashy, blahblahblah who cares they are that's part of the deal.

The real problem is this:  who gives a shit.

See, the reason TMZ and Perez Hilton are always the first to give you the goss on who is preggo is because they're willing to be totally wrong.  Which, for a news source, is totally wack.  But they're not trying to be news.  They're gossip sites.  They really couldn't possibly care less if they're wrong.

So you get this juicy story on who Kim Kardashian is seeing now (and yes, at this point we know it's Yeezy and that is so great OMG let's have an opinion), only to find out it's wrong.  Jennifer Aniston apparently gets her heart BROKEN after 2 dates with a guy, which couldn't possibly, in any universe, be accurate.  Pooooor Jen.  Maybe she found love with Justin "Played a Dick Lawyer on Parks & Rec" Theroux.

The reason it's hard to care is because half the time the info is wrong.  We're talking in half-truths about the relationships of people we've never even met. All of that sentence bothers me, but the half-truth really stings.  If we can't even get our facts right, we have to consider just why we care so much about getting the facts in the first place.

So.  Say it with me.  "I don't care who Rihanna is sleeping with.  I can't believe Katy Perry and John Mayer sleeping naked together is a story.  How did the Jennifer/Brad/Angelina love triangle stay in the papers for FIVE YEARS.  I don't know these people, I don't know anything more than what the publicity machine tells us, and it makes me look like an idiot for getting emotionally invested in people we legitimately nickname KStew and RPatz."

Now, if I knew these people personally, it'd be a whole different story.  I love that kind of gossip.  But come on.  This is lame.  Let's do better.

Guys this is really important

Hippy means someone with big hips.

Hippie is someone who hates war and doesn't shower.

You can be a hippy hippie.

But a hippy is not necessarily a hippie.

Thank you.

Why We Don't Care

                Try to get a young person engaged in a foreign policy debate.  No, go ahead.  Try it.  Oh, too busy on the facebook, twitting at their friends and tumbling without even getting up off their chair (words don’t mean what they used to, that’s for sure).

                Try to get a young person to care about social issues.  Abortion or gay marriage.  Economic issues.  Tax cuts or health care.  They haven’t even looked up from their iPhones yet.  Rude, in addition to not caring.  My generation is the most apathetic and shallow generation of all time.

                I was born in 1989, which puts me square in the middle of us Millenials.  Social media started to come into its own as I was entering adolescence (AIM in middle school, myspace in high school, facebook in college).  When I started high school, only a handful of friends had cell phones, for emergencies only, about 73 minutes every 3 months.  By college, every single one of my friends had a phone.  Phones that took pictures, even.  By the end of college, you could go on facebook and check your email from the cellular.  My generation never has to be bored again.

                Not that we ever were, really.  My generation is a generation of kids that were overbooked from age 5 with too many extracurricular activities - to be a well-rounded student to get into a good college to get into a good grad school to have the perfect life.  Stressed with school and play rehearsal and soccer practice and SAT prep.
                In 2008, the economy crashed.  After an expensive war, continued deregulation of the economy over decades (despite overwhelming historical evidence that that NEVER WORKS WHY DO WE DO THAT), the constant desire by all Americans to buy more and more on more and more credit with less actual cash to back it up, and a furthering of bipartisanship of this nation, our economy finally fell under the pressure.  And as statistical evidence has proven time and time again, the Millenial generation has been the one to bear the brunt of this crash.

                And now we’ve graduated college.  We’re working at Starbucks.  We’re living at home.  We have a couple thousand dollars to our name and tens of thousands of dollars to pay off in student loans.  We don’t know what the future will hold.
                But at least there's always another video of a stupid kitten stranded on a zipping zoomba to watch.  A job in your field?  What does that even look like?

    Whatever, I'm over it.  Rob Delaney just tweeted something on twitter and I'm gonna go on a wikipedia rampage, looking for wild trivia facts.  This afternoon just got awesome.

An Open Letter to Girls Who Hate Girls

                I didn’t get my ears pierced until after college.  I don’t know what color foundation I’m supposed to wear.  I hate drama and avoid it like the plague. 

                This is where I say “I’m not like other girls.”  And all the other non-girl girls nod their heads in agreement and we all pat ourselves on the back for being fellow non-girl girls who are totally not like other girls because ugh, OTHER GIRLS, am I right?

                No.  Absolutely nothing in the first paragraph makes me special.  This is the myth we’ve been taught to believe:  the average girl is a crazy, shallow bitch, and if you’re different, you’re “not like other girls.” 

                I remember the first time I was hated on by another girl simply because of my gender.  I was 19, and a couple guy friends were having a party.  I was over there pretty often, so I knew almost everyone there.  But there was one girl, a friend of Bob’s (not his real name), who I didn’t recognize.  So I thought, in the spirit of drunken friendliness, that I’d try to engage.  My girlfriends and I are firm believers that alcohol + music = dance party, so I invited her to join us.

                That look she gave me, like I was some kind of ditzy freak that was just not worth her time, confused the shit out of me.  I confronted my friend about it the next day and he explained to me that “she just doesn’t like other girls.”

                What.  First of all, she’s a girl.  If she met herself at a party, she would hate herself.  Right?  Do I have that right?  Secondly, I’m awesome.  Why would she want to deprive herself just because of my gender?  Which happens to be HER gender?

                Since then, I’ve been introduced to this concept time and time again.  I haven’t experienced quite that level of immediate disdain since, but I HAVE been told that “all my friends except you are guys because I hate girls” from other friends of mine.

                This isn’t to say dump your guy friends.  I have a ton of guy friends (ohmygodI’msopopular) and they mean the world to me, just like my girlfriends do.  Sometimes you just like typical “guy” stuff, so you have more in common with dudes.  That’s not girl hate; that’s guy love.  There’s a world of difference.

                But here’s the thing.  Too many of my female friends are drama-free cool chicks.  They’re smart and funny and easy to get along with.  They are NOT the exception.

                And plenty of guys I’ve met are gossip-mongering dicks who passive-aggressively attack their friends, often just for a chance to bang some chick.  We recognize THEY are the exception.  Why do we not recognize that for ourselves?  If a girl is a drama queen, she’s typical.  If a guy is, he’s an anomaly.

                But I’m guilty too.  When I’m at a party and I see some hot girl there, my first instinct is to assume that bitch is judging me.  It takes a few moments to realize that I am also that bitch, that she might be super cool, and that not all instincts are created equal and I should just be chill and say hi.

                Because I’ve been that slutty girl showing off my ass in that dress.  Wearing make-up doesn’t make a woman shallow.  Saying “like” every other word is just how I communicate.  I can’t judge others, because none of the above negates my own personal awesome.

                We have to fight against these prejudices every day, and instead of getting mad at the prejudices themselves, we get mad at the people we perceive to be propagating these prejudices.    No!  It’s the prejudices that are fucked up, not the made-up numbers of ladies we assume are actually like this.

                And maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe most girls are crazy drama queens who body snark behind each other’s backs.  But honestly, I don’t give a shit.  My girlfriends are too important to me to assume that every girl I meet sucks.  I fucking hated it when that was assumed of me. 

                You’re not awesome despite your gender.  You’re awesome – end of sentence.  Solidarity, sister.  Solifuckingdarity.

About Me

My name is Caitles Marie.

This is my blog.

I will tell you things that I think.

If you think I'm full of shit you're probably half wrong, at least.  Maybe more.  Who knows.

Like all other blogs on the internet, let's be as civil as possible.

I'm shitty at HTML so this is gonna be simple and consist mostly of words, maybe a picture sometimes.

Thank you for your time enjoy this I hope you will.