Really Be Yourself, Y'all!
So... computer woes. It's old. Wordpress doesn't update their certificates properly or whatever, so it's off the table momentarily.
Which is pretty much why I do switch between this platform & that one. And I am old, because case in point, I'm over here struggling with... writing... when everyone else is making videos on Instagram & TikTok, which is what I'll be writing about today.
We'll just dive right into it, right?
The Monkee Bois. My older sister told me about them. Wanted me to follow them on Instagram because "their videos are so great!" & she practically squealed that sentence.
I don't know, man. I've got issue with them & I can place what it is.
But most of them are about body positivity & being yourself & doing what you like, with their emphasis being that they LOVE the 80s (but are twelve? No, I'm sure they're late teens - early to mid twenties?), so are generally seen wearing crop top metal band shirts from the decade & adding 80s music to their posts.
Like this.
So... I understand their passion & I don't even think they are dorks for wearing this look because they want to... or listening to the music. It's that they'll pull their crop tops up, revealing their stomachs, give duck face, & the one with the prettier 70s hair can't throw the metal horns hand sign to save his life.
Is it schtick? Is it just to be funny because it's not like their glam rock idols did not pose in these ways or act goofy, as they certainly did. But I can't tell if they're trying too hard in order to be funny... or to take all us older ladies to cougar town.
*rolls eyes*
I did look them up to see if they had a Youtube video I could put up (not gonna happen) & I saw where they came from. They've amped up like... a thousand fold within a year.
Hell, they just put up a story where the real Heather Locklear liked their video (I don't know which one) & I actually thought that was awesome for them, because that's the perfect person to get a shoutout from... ya know, if you're a guy whose from or into the 80s.
But I think they're tryin' too hard. Something about it just... is missin' the mark for me.
Is it because they'll say, "Hide your moms", which could be funny, except I'm that age bracket. I'm "the mom", *flails arms* with all these fellow Gen X females swooning over them, & that's just not my thing so it's making me uncomfortable as fuck & I can't find the humor in it? Or is just missing the mark for funny? I honestly can't tell.
A good point would be Van Halen. So, the one with the prettier hair (though I think they both have awesome hair) seems very early David Lee Roth. My sister ADORED David Lee Roth back in the day (much like many other girls her age then) & she just thought he was soooo pretty.
Me? I thought he was wild. Like he seemed fun. I liked his hair, sure, but also that'd he'd just scream & hoot & hollar in the songs & jump around. I wanted to emulate him, not date him. And back to the hair. I'm not drawn in by dudes hair, with it giving me hearts for eyes over him... but I do want to know how he achieved that look, so that my hair will do the same.
I'm trying to say that I'm more the guy in this scenario (which I'm well aware that most guys thought Roth was a fucking joke, & were just in it for Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing), but since I am a girl, I don't have to be thought of as weird for not hating Roth. He made me laugh.
Does this humor & esthetic miss the mark with guys? More specifically guys who were teenagers in the 80s? Because I genuinely want to know.
I'm so much the guy that while I also liked most of the bands they'll reference (or hell just 70s/80s metal in general), I was never crushing on the band members. I never wanted to sleep with them or the guys that went to their shows. I liked how they decorated their guitars or played the music. I thought they were cool. I wanted to go to their shows to see them in concert. Not throw my panties on stage & hope I got invited to the after party. I wanted to hang out with the guys that wanted to go their concerts. Not as arm candy, but just as a fellow guy.
Even the other day my sister was saying something odd about me being very guyish. How it was weird that I'll be a girl & then suddenly it's like a director told me to be a guy & I took the role to heart.
Did I get upset? You bet I didn't. What did I do?
I got excited & asked, "Well, how well am I doing?!" because I wanted to know if I was awesome at it.
I am not trying to be a guy, but I do find it kind of awesome that I can be a teenage guy from the 70s or 80s.
"Except for the boobs, you're too good at it."
I'm not sure exactly what I did after that, but then she said, "Yeah, that right there! Just like a guy, how do you do that?!", but it was some reaction, some facial expression.
I think it's that I pull what I like from society & make it part of me.
Ugh, I forgot that I combined all of my photos. So, bear with me. OK, so we have my older sister (in the middle) & my older brother (on the right). I don't have any good teenage photos of her, but her hair was always perfectly fixed & her clothes immaculate & just, well she wasn't popular, but it's like she could have been.
But I didn't want to be like her. I liked trashy women. Like all the 80s hookers I saw in films...
OK, so the hooker in hot pink hot pants that parties with Arthur in the beginning of the 1981 film, Arthur. I wanted to look like her when I grew up.
My sister didn't look like this at all.
OK, so that's our mom in the 60s as a teenager. See how clean cut & polished & pretty she is? My sister was the 80s version of this. That is not the look that I was ever dreamin' of going for.
Yes, I'm getting there. So, I didn't want to be like my sister. But I also didn't want dress like my dad, who is also in that picture all clean cut & polished & pretty.
So, if it wasn't trashy girls then it was teenage boys.
Specifically this look. My older brother. So way less glam than the Monkee Bois, but an awesome 80s metal head teenage boy. I think that because I thought that my older brother was SO awesome, that I picked up a lot from him. I didn't even really know that I was doing it. But there will be a lot of times that my sister is all, "You're just like Rusty..." & I'm sure this is why. Facial expression & things I say that I just picked up from him because I thought they were cool & I tucked them away into my proverbial belt, so to speak.
I'm pretty certain when she said I was like a guy the other day, she just meant Rusty. Because that's always what she means.
And yeah, he was SUPER pretty, but I didn't want to date him (not related, as our moms were adopted, but still. My brother, so ewww...), but now does he look like the type of guy who find the Monkee Bois hot or amusing. No, he doesn't. Which is not to say that I feel that he wouldn't so that I also shouldn't, but that guys, in a general sense, wouldn't readily find them funny (or hot), ya dig?
So, in this scenario I feel more like my brother than my sister, because she does kind of find the Monkee Bois hot.
Case in point. I LOVE Billy Idol. LOVE HIM! One of his videos is pretty much the first thing I remember seeing on MTV. That & Girls, Girls, Girls by Motley Crue. I was four. I couldn't wait to grow up to be the girls in the Motley Crue video, but certainly didn't want to sleep with or hang our with the band members, but this is about Billy Idol.
I never wanted to sleep with him. I was never the girl talking about how hot or pretty that he was. I was just excited that I could raise my lip just like him. I could be like him.
I am not the girl swooning over him. I'm the big, burly motorcycle dude in the 1998 film, The Wedding Singer, who stands up to defend Billy Idol. You know that dude doesn't want to sleep with him, but Billy Idol is cool & you just don't fuck with him.
Yeah, that's me.
But really my reason for making this post is their latest video. And I can't be sure of them. I mean, they know nothing about the 80s except through their own rose coloured glasses. I'm not knockin' it as this is also me. I like the mid to late 70s (when I wasn't even born) & the early to mid 80's when I was only a baby to age six. My view of the 80s is not the same as the teenager or the adult living in the same period.
So, when I say something reminds me of the 80s, it's just a hint of what I like about the decade, where my sister will pick out something that actually looks like the everyday 80s. She's not wrong, but it's not my reality in my own head. I'm certain that my view of the 70s is way off since I wasn't even alive during that decade.
The point is, are they doing what I'm doing, but goin' all out for it with out tweaking it to themselves?
The point is they're always basically saying, "do you!" but in this video, in order to get you to like yourself, you're to wear what you want, listen to what you want, but also go to the gym & be tight & taught.
This is what I had issue with. This is the entirety of this post. I think I'm super awesome, but I do not work out & I'm certainly not tight & taught & that really isn't the way to "love yourself.", so what is their message exactly?
Do they really believe that? Because they seem like they're not jerks, but that's a jerk move. Is is that though they're giving "advice" it's really just another excuse for them to preen for the ladies? Or did they look too hard through the 80s lens & take everything to heart? Because gyms were a huge deal in the 80s & it was all about working out (or seeming like you did) & having rock hard bodies... but that's a terrible message for people today. It's not like it was good then either, but it's not cool to say that the only way to be awesome is to look a certain way.
If they believe that nonsense then they are jerks & I can't believe that they're doing this because they love it, & not to just feel loved by millions of women.
Which does sound like I might care that they don't think I'm svelt enough. No. It's that now I feel like I've been lied to. When they keep telling people that they're awesome (the other people as in "You are awesome!") & to do what you like & forget about what other people will think, but then they put a damning clause on the end.
Well, I feel like they just figured out the secret to get attention from chicks & they just need something to say while acting "pretty" in their videos. Like they don't mean any of it. Not even that they, themselves, like how they're actually dressing, because they're just pan handling for adoration?
Is that all they're doing? Is that why is seems... not quite right to me? Or is it all funny & I'm just missing it? I really can't tell.
Though I do know that if you're doin' a thing for yourself, you're not out there shouting at the world to see you & making a big to-do about it. You just do it because it is you. It's like breathing.
Am I a little upset that they might actually be mocking the 80s & aren't in it for themselves? Because besides the fact that I detest hypocrites & I detest people pan handling for attention, I do really like the 80s, even if it's just the image I've cultivated in my own brain.
So, I feel a little attacked. Not because I'm fat & therefor "can't" be awesome. No, I know I'm fat AND I know I'm awesome & I'm not looking for validation. It's really, I think that it might be all scam to get chicks. Are we just praising this when it's really just the modern day version of whatever "new" trick will get the girls attention. The thing, we as girls, all collectively rolled our eyes at when we were younger. Or when we know it's just to get into our pants & it's just not gonna work.
Which it's fine if they want adoration or chicks or whatever, but they should really mean it with the whole we love the 80s thing & it's not that they turn the camera off & get outta that junk & laugh at how stupid people are for falling for it.
I don't know, man. Somehow I feel personally victimized by Regina George over here.
Why does it bother me? I'm chalkin' it up to me being too guy-ish, therefor their humor is just missin' the mark on me. Which does sound legit. But, I can't help feeling duped in a way. Like they've been lulling me into a false sense of security? They seem like nice, fun guys & they're all for people being themselves...
Oh... wait... what? But do they? What's with this perfect body business? That seems stupid. Do they really believe that you have to be someone else's idea of perfect to think that you are awesome? Because that is fucking rubbish. Or did they just take EVERYTHING from the 80's & didn't really test it out to see if it jived with how they really feel/what they're really saying? Because honestly, it really could go both ways & now I'm not sure if they're funny or just jerks.
It's not like I was dreaming of becoming best friends with them or that I would care one way or another if they thought I was... "worthy". I don't care. I like me. I like my varied swings between Business Hooker & Teenage Boy of a certain era.
It's not that they can't even be the version of the 80s that they want to be, which isn't my version & only slightly crosses over. Like while my version has some of the same bands, it's really full of non-glam metal like Sabbath, Maiden, Priest, AC-DC & then a lot of synthwave, which includes stuff from the period like Billy Idol or things with the synthesizer sound including some Hall & Oates or even Greg Kihn Band or The Cars, but also newer things like TimeCop1983 or Kavinsky or Boy Harsher or something.
We are not the same 80s. I feel like that's OK. I guess... maybe... I realize that the portions of decades that I prefer were not rainbows & kittens & I've adjusted accordingly to make this time, living rent free in my brain, entirely my own.
I feel like them saying to be yourself, but to go the gym to get the perfect body would be like me saying women should have equal rights, but a little sexual harassment in the workplace should be expected sweetheart. Since sexual harassment & women's rights were pretty much non existent in the 70s & 80s, however, I dislike that aspect, so that does not make it into my version, my recreation. I realize that it existed, but I don't want any of that mess, ya dig?
It just dinged wrong piano keys with me & not because I'm an overweight lady who is not taught & tight & doesn't visit the gym. Yeah, that describes me, an aspect of me, but it doesn't define ALL of me, & I'm still fucking awesome. So, mixed messages. I'm not even feeling hurt because, "but.. but...! I am fabulous!", but because that's just a terrible message for others.
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