Everything I Used to Get Bullied For is “Cool” Now

Photo by Les Anderson on Unsplash

And I couldn’t be mad enough.

Throughout my life, I’ve always been an oddball. I rarely fit in with others, much less the cool kids. The things I liked, the music I listened to, the stuff I did, were all considered foreign by everyone. I took comfort in my weirdness, my strangeness, the way I stuck out. It didn’t stop other people from laughing at me and making me feel like something was wrong with me. Eventually, I became fine with it and was proud of my individuality and indifference to trends.

Now, being obsessed with stuff like Tudor history is considered “quirky”. Knowing how to crochet (and doing so in public) is “whimsical”. Dream pop music, once considered niche and obscure, is called “dreamcore”. And the thing I hate the most is that everything considered unique, unusual, or strange has a label with “-core” attached to it.

When I was younger, many people made fun of me for being fascinated by past. Nobody understood why I wanted a jukebox so badly, or why I longed to live during the 80s. “That’s such dad music,” a friend once remarked when I put on some Foo Fighters music while driving. Another friend wrinkles her nose when I showed her some 80s-inspired architecture while we complained about modern exterior design, and promptly changed the subject.

And yet, another friend found it quirky when I sprinkled in words like “toasty” and “delightful” in my vocabulary.

Even my own mother huffed her embarrassment about having a daughter that “acted like an old woman”.

Perhaps I should be happy that being weird is cool now. But I’m not. I’m still bitter about being teased for having weird taste in music or clothing, then having it become mainstream 10 years later. It’s just not fair.

Like why do we only celebrate differences and individuality when it becomes mainstream?

Oh whoops, I answered my own question right there.