10 Tweets My High School Self Would Have Tweeted
Posted at 5:00 AM Mar 09, 2010
By Susan Quesal
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A week or two ago, a friend sent me a video of a little girl crying about her love for Justin Bieber. I don't know who Justin Bieber is exactly, but I am guessing that he's probably some dreamy heartthrob a la NKOTB who makes the insides of even the smallest future-lady turn to Jell-O. I guess the video is kinda funny, but mostly it just makes me squirm because I remember being a child like that--dramatic, tear-prone, and totally in love with boys way before she was supposed to be.
Which made me start thinking about how technology makes all this youthful crazy PUBLIC now. We all grew up (or at least most of us did) in an era when it was relatively difficult to publicly humiliate yourself outside of your school/town. People always worry about sexting and titty-pictures and all that business, but really, shouldn't we be just as worried about all the embarrassing, passive-aggressive, angsty and emo posts the kids are going to regret making public when they realize how silly they are? I know that if I had been allowed to publicize my thoughts in 140 characters or less as a teenager, I would not be able to read what I'd written today without turning a shade of bright red that would have matched my senior-year sneakers. I imagine those tweets would have looked something like the following--10 Tweets My High School Self Would Have Tweeted:
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10) My mom and dad are such controlling jerks. DON'T THEY KNOW I'M 14???? #notababy #treatmelikeagrownup
Remember when you felt like 14 was really old? That was ridiculous.
9) This Dashboard Confessional album makes me feel infinite. #emo #perksofbeingawallflower
"Emo" barely begins to describe the depth of my high school angst and ennui.
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8) Lunch with Josh. Played him that Alanis Morrissette song that reminds me of him. Totally in love. #gushgushgush
Remember when you could unironically use music to communicate important things to the boys you liked? Like your undying insane obsessive teenaged love with people who were never going to even kind of want to make out with you back?
7) My photography teacher is the stupidest person I have ever met and I am only getting stupider for my exposure to him. #whenscollege
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We all had that one teacher that made us want to jump out a window and start running for the nearest institution of higher education. And we probably would have posted non-private Tweets about it, because we were impulsive teenagers.
6) ZOMG DRIVERS LICENSE YESSSSSSSSSS!!!! #bestdayevar #sweetfreedom #singingatthetopofmylungsoncountryroads
Still one of the best days of my life.
Comments
And I STILL tweet #1 on a yearly basis. I can't help it.
Posted 03/09/2010 at 06:57:26 AMlooneyrooney!! Love it! All of these are very high school, Susan. . . and I'm glad we didn't have Twitter in high school. It was embarassing enough having to live it for real, let alone having it broadcast for everyone who didn't happen to witness it in the commons...
Posted 03/09/2010 at 07:13:46 AMI went away on a year long volunteer program the year after I finished high school (I was 18, it was called Katimavik).
During that time I posted periodic blog posts on my msn spaces account (which could only be accessed by friends from messenger).
Last year my mom used those (she had access, she didn't hack in) to produce a memory book thing using the blog postings and various photos.
It was an absolutely adorable idea.
But none of them were edited (by me or her) and they are typo ridden and occasionally angsty and often ridiculous (like that time I had a fight with my roommate about the proper way to cut tomatoes up).
These weren't even my 14 year old thoughts - I was a reasonably stable 18 year old. Still, I am mildly horrified to have them collected and printed. I've gone through the pictures but I can't even bring myself to read the text. I'm not far enough away from it for it to be funny yet. It's just mildly embarassing.
Posted 03/24/2010 at 08:49:37 PMThis generation has something coming when we look back on the things we spewed across the internet.
#2 made me smile. I grew up about 30 minutes from Bushnell and it made me think about the drama that went down at the small town/small school high school parties. Twitter would have definitely made things interesting with things getting spread instantly instead of merely relatively quickly.
Posted 04/01/2010 at 10:00:38 PM