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Max Rocket's avatar

Thank you so much for this piece! The part that really blew my mind was the 6th grade girl pleading with you to "be normal," basically. I'm also a weirdo outsider who was bullied a lot, but I didn't have the perspective to see that so clearly. Also maybe I wasn't pretty, lol.

I didn't want to be "popular" so much as to feel "normal." But the problem for me wasn't at school, it was an abusive home life. I probably would have been more like you were had I had some stability at home to lean back on and feel ok about myself in general (no assumptions about your home life, of course).

But that put so much into perspective for me about what LITERALLY SO MUCH of this is about -- WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE NORMAL? Why can't you fit into the hierarchy? And if not, we'll bully you till you do because we are threatened without it. Wow. Thanks again!

The thing this reminds me of is Lee Atwater. It seems to be that he really only became a Republican strategist because he felt like the Democrats around him were judgmental elites who thought they were "better than" him ... so he wanted to take them down.

I wonder what your thoughts are on whether there is literally any way we can not be a part of this dumb social hierarchy without triggering these people to want to "own the libs" as they want to so desperately.

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Von Jocks's avatar

Flashbacks to why I never fit in in small-town Louisiana. I'm sorry to say that your reasoning resonates with me, because that makes me sad.

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