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{smell my farts: the popular kids} jonathan bitz Note to all the popular kids (you know your name): Just because you’re popular doesn’t mean that people actually like you. Yes, we’re adults now, but social life still feels a lot like high school. The analogy is complete when you draw the picture on your Pee Chee, of: a cafeteria filled with tables – where some are invisibly designated only for the cool kids. Signed by the invisible social contract and tradition, this is where they sit day after day, punching each other in the arms and laughing hysterically, with a roar of superiority. Or, draw this in your Trapper Keeper: the picture is of a sleepover with the kids in their sleeping bags, each of them are ripping their asses open and they’re all sticking their heads into the bags and smelling each others’ farts. Screw the crown or the tiara: this is the real picture of popularity. And you bet: technology has made it all worse. With the big circle jerk that is Facebook and other social networking tools – I really can’t imagine being in high school these days. For the nerds, geeks, Goths, metalheads, loners: it must be pure torture. Gone is the picture of the “Ham on Rye” Bukowski with boils and scars on his face, longingly looking into the windows of his high school prom as the other kids dance, socialize and have the best nights of their lives – as a singular occasion. No, this picture of the solitary youth – and now, the loner adult – has been amplified by the ability to witness all the popular kids smelling each other’s farts online, in public. In word. Over and over again... And we all know that, when they're not sucking face with each other, they’re busy dismissing everything that doesn’t fit into their paradigm. They’re busy with swirlies and wedgies and noogies and shaming everything that doesn’t look like them and their parents. What an embarrassing couple of paragraphs that I just wrote, no? Well this all the more embarrassing when you consider that the popular crowd doesn’t die when adolescence ends. What a shame – I should have wished their execution many times as an adolescent. To the contrary: the notion of the popular culture can intensify as we move into adulthood. And it’s the adults that I’m mostly concerned with because, well… they should know better. Or, are adults too immersed in their stupidity to know anything better than how to give a reacharound to their buddy-pals? The Urban Dictionary notes that the popular group is “(a) non-existent group. The theory of popular kids makes no sense because if everyone outside of the group refers to them as the popular kids and doesn't like that group, they are really only popular among themselves. The only truly popular kids are the relatively quiet ones that everybody can get along with.” Why were the nerds in school age years unpopular? Because they were smart. Really: there has always been an association between those that are smart and those that are loners. For the most part, those that are traditionally smart are traditionally the outsiders. Why be an outsider? Why not assimilate if you’re so smart? Simple: The smart ones don’t want to be popular. The smart ones don’t want to assimilate. The smart ones know that the strong are the solitary. The smart ones know that it’s the outliers on the graph that need to be watched. The smart ones know that being isolated from contrary opinions, as the popular kids are – is a severe intellectual handicap and detriment. Growing up, I wasn’t a nerd – I can only wish now that I was. And while I wasn’t an outsider, I wasn’t ever in the popular crowd. As an adult, it’s the same deal for me. And with what I’ve witnessed in the public forums: in the newspapers, the newspaper’s blogs and online forums, I am terrified to ever be a part of the popular crowd. Because really, no: I don’t want to smell your farts. No, I won’t give you a reacharound. Especially all you, only half-talented at what you want to do: all of you pseudo-“writers”, “musicians”, “intellectuals”, “promoters” and “models” – all of you pseudo-do-gooders. All of you that recognize the option of doing good, of creating something profound but are too scared, lazy or otherwise inept at creating something truly, wholly good – in all, in creating a “complete thought”. And so, with all that free time not doing what they really want to be doing (well – and crafting their art), they spend their time patting each other on the back. Surely, every loner may secretly want to be in the popular crowd. But, I would argue: that’s not entirely correct. What any outsider want is what every human being wants: to be seen in their pure, human light – as the idiosyncratically exceptional, talented creature that they are. But once you enter that chatty, pat-on-the-back world of the popular crowd – you almost always lose any hope for that kind of authenticity. Once you enter the popular crowd, what you want to do (and really, what you need to do to retain your credentials is): not to do the wrong thing, or say the wrong thing. The standard of acceptance that is typical for most any group is, well… shallow. In some circles, acceptance is predicated on how much money you make, or what kind of job you have. Other times, entrance into the pop circle merely requires that you wear certain kind of shoes, listen to a style of music, read certain authors, spend time at particular places or… is it really about how well you smell each other’s farts? Is being popular simply a matter of how loud you pat all those you “revere” on the back? Is it about how talented you are at giving reacharounds, in public – so that everybody can witness the same thing: “For sure, he is a supreme fart smeller. He seems like an acceptable addition to our little gang of circle jerks.” And really, this is the primary concern with the selective circles of jerks: there is no real critical thought. And how could there be? What with all the time they spend smelling each other’s farts and giving each other reacharounds – how could they think straight? If you want it straight, here it is: the popular kids are a disease. And, they should be leveled; be made extinct. This is the inherent problem with a democracy: it is mob rule. This is what keeps black people at the back of the bus: poor, unexamined, uncritical thoughts based in emotion and faulty traditions and hunches more than anything. Large circles of those thinking the same unexamined and accepted thoughts are extremely dangerous. This when their shared ideas are limited, evade contingencies, and are blindly optimistic – for their optimism does not stem from rational, linear thought – it stems from emotion and acceptance and the solace found in that acceptance. If you need evidence, let’s cite the proud crowd fad on the late 20th century of wearing pink collared shirts. Need more? Examine any other fashion trend in the latter 20th century and you’ll find your cringe. So here’s my remedy: smell your own farts. Maybe you’ll actually come-up with an idea that isn’t full of somebody else’s hot air. |
