Girl Talk: Approval from Society

Welcome to ep. 1 of Girl Talk.

To start off I should probably introduce the series. Girl Talk - a place where, well, girls talk about topics which I, a 16 year old teenager, feel like I want to just chat about.

If I’m being completely honest, I thought of this series last year. The first GT post I ever made was probably in Jan 2016. And ever since then I’ve written more posts and continued to delete them. I’m not sure why, maybe it was from the fear of putting my opinion out into the public, because of what others might think.

Which then leads to the topic of this post - Approval from Society.

One of the main things I've noticed is the way teenagers, especially girls I think, act around different people. Whether that's dressing a certain way or even a change in their behaviour and language. My question is - why??? What has made us into these self conscious teenagers striving for perfection when we should be living our carefree lives before adulthood, where actual responsibilities come rolling in.

I think that through social media and this hierarchy amongst school crowds, a lot of us try to impress others to be "accepted" within our community. Therefore so many people change the way they are in order to feel a sense of security being liked by others. I can definitely see why, I mean, this is something a lot of us subconsciously do, such as holding back from saying things or feeling embarassed when wearing a label which isn't designer or considered "cool." If you think about it, the fact that so many people feel this way is just ridiculous.

I'm not sure why popularity seems to be something which so many people value so much. Maybe it's that sense of feeling loved, but at the end of the day wouldn't you rather have a smaller number of close friends rather than a large group of acquaintances? We seem to have grown up in a generation where one particular way to act or dress is considered "normal" and anything else is just different or strange. I wish that this wasn't the case, but unfortunately it is.

And with all of us trying to be "normal," I find that we all just end up the same. Looking the same. Acting the same. But why try to be the same when individually we are so different. I love how everyone has different personalities and different strengths and weaknesses, which is why this whole image of what is considered society's normal quite frankly... sucks.

The only person who can make you stop feeling the need to act or dress a certain way to fit in, is yourself. You need to just not care what others will think and other people who value the same will naturally gravitate towards you. You have the power to choose what you are influenced by and decide that you will not allow this idea amongst our society of being "normal" to affect your decisions.

So next time you want to wear something but you're afraid what others might think, wear it anyway. When you want to join a club others might judge you for, do it anyway. If you have a strong opinion on an issue which is important to you, speak up (as Elle Woods would say).

xx Hannah