Confessions of a Recovering Main Character

My most frequent prayer is not for world peace or finding out how taxes work before the IRS gets me  — it is that some social media trends stay dead. So imagine my horror when I saw a brightly colored infographic on “How to Be the Main Character” circulating Instagram. 

I consumed a lot of media content as a child. I had moved across the country at eight years old and struggled to make friends, leaving me to fall into the arms of TV, films and books. I was a vulnerable young girl with bad teeth, and I simply absorbed anything I was shown, including how girls were portrayed on screen. There is one recurring line that has stuck with me all these years later, and is probably familiar to anyone who watched low-budget makeover movies of the early 2000s: “You’re not like other girls.” This sentence, usually spoken by an adoring male as he raked his eyes over the female main character, made me feel like I had been told a secret. It was rare praise only bestowed on the most deserving of girls — those who rejected airless “girly qualities” like makeup, nail polish and the color pink. This girl dressed in dark, masculine colors, knew how to read (wow!) and was abashed to be given any kind of attention — think Bella Swan, Ramona Flowers, Kat Stratford or Laney Boggs. She was given the long shots, the swelling music, the gratuitous close ups of her expressions. She was the focus of attention, her individuality seemingly a miracle worthy of devotion. To an 11-year-old who wondered why her memorization of the “Guinness Book of World Records” didn’t make her any friends, this was like heroin. 

I immediately dragged my mother to the mall and bought a barrage of masculine apparel–cargo shorts, black hoodies and navy blue sweaters. I thought I looked like a movie character but I probably looked like the unabomber. Even worse, I rejected anything remotely feminine  — I stopped painting my nails, refused to watch “iCarly” and built up an inorganic resentment toward other women. I would sit on the bus and hope others would see me nonchalantly leaning my head on the window deep in thought, like it was a full-time job. But I was waiting for a reward that would never come. The fixation dwindled over the years — I went to an all girls high school and fell in love with being a woman and more so being among them. Women became like a second skin to me, and I found that the “other girls” I was so afraid of being like were some of the most genuine, kind and interesting people I had ever met. This relaxed, supportive space, due to the absence of the previously looming need for male approval (a topic for another essay,) allowed me to exhale a long breath I didn’t even know I was holding in. Why pretend Tarantino films are good to impress people when you can watch “The Princess Diaries”? 

So at age 18, stumbling upon online instructions on how to be the “main character” was a quick reminder of a dark, lonely cargo-pants-filled past. And, much like an addict, I found myself falling into old habits. I had moved to New York City, the most “main character” city in the world. While I was no longer afraid of femininity, I would still walk down the street with my tote bag and secondhand novel thinking some cameraman was in the trees orchestrating the wind to blow my hair just so. I was still looking to be viewed by someone. And don’t get me wrong — I think romanticizing your life is fun and at times necessary to cope. I don’t want to come off as a bitter old man under a bridge, slinging mud toward the blissful population above. We have an increasingly cynical culture whose obsession with self-deprecation destroys anyone who dares show any sign of happiness. I’m also aware of the increased compartmentalization of life on social media in which there is a constant pressure to portray perfection under the guise of effortlessness. But, as I saw more and more of my generation longing to become the “main character,” I felt urged to warn them against the same spiral I fell into — of constantly straining to project an inorganic image of myself for a constructed and false idea of praise and attention. If you think there are cameras, you are going to pose. And if that posing is constant, you’re going to tire out eventually, leaving you to wonder who you were posing for in the first place. I do not criticize or blame the people who fall into this pattern — I’m one of them. I blame those who wrote films which suggest an individual’s worth is based on their uniqueness, or that life follows a cinematic narrative which holds eventual reward if you maintain an image. While feeling perceived is gratifying in short bursts, I think we’ve been conditioned to police our own actions to impress some omnipotent, false god of gaze. And that god told me to pretend the “Twilight” movies aren’t modern masterpieces. So I’m upset. 

 I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that perfectly captures real life. To be honest, that sounds like a terrible movie. All I can say, however, is that if “Ten Things I Hate About You” showed Kat Stratford desperately trying to hold a cough during class while popping a forehead vein, maybe I wouldn’t have shopped in the Target boy’s section for two years.