The Worst Day of my Life

November 21, 2008 10:48 AM

The Worst Day of My Life.SLYTP
posted by adrober (146 comments total)

The worst minute of my life.
posted by Wanderlust88 at 10:52 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

SLYT my wrist.
posted by gman at 10:53 AM on November 21, 2008 [56 favorites]

Life is futile.
posted by 517 at 10:53 AM on November 21, 2008

I'd snipe, but that's kind of how I was in early November 2004.
posted by ShadowCrash at 10:54 AM on November 21, 2008 [19 favorites]

I don't get it.
posted by sveskemus at 10:55 AM on November 21, 2008

Well I laughed. It's torture being a preteen girl by the way.
posted by dog food sugar at 10:58 AM on November 21, 2008

This is so oddly compelling.
I have no excuse for finding it so. I know it's wrong.
posted by cccorlew at 10:59 AM on November 21, 2008

Ok.

No kids for me.
posted by Citizen Premier at 11:00 AM on November 21, 2008 [5 favorites]

gman is my new hero.
posted by Pastabagel at 11:01 AM on November 21, 2008

This is HILARIOUS
posted by teabag at 11:03 AM on November 21, 2008

companion piece
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:04 AM on November 21, 2008 [9 favorites]

It's torture being a preteen girl by the way.

"Probably what scares me most about internet predators is that they have the stamina to talk to an adolescent for longer than ten seconds."
-Al Rae
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:04 AM on November 21, 2008 [26 favorites]

gman is my new hero.

Although I've taken shit for it in the past, you know you've always been one of mine.
posted by gman at 11:06 AM on November 21, 2008

Video shot in their parents' basement, fittingly. This is like the Miss Teen Magazine version of 45 year old D&D nerds shrieking at the loss of their +3 Sword of Beholdening. Except that preteen girls actually have a legitimate excuse for being in their parents' basement.
posted by DU at 11:07 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

Here's another. Let's spend the rest of the day making fun of kids on Christmas.
posted by Pastabagel at 11:08 AM on November 21, 2008 [5 favorites]

Every time I watch this, I feel a little stronger.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 11:10 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

In a way I envy these young girls. If that's the most Earth shattering upsetting thing to happen in their young lives, I'd gladly trade places with them in a heartbeat.
posted by cazoo at 11:12 AM on November 21, 2008 [5 favorites]

So that open hatch in the ceiling? Is that where Ceiling Cat has been hanging out during previous episodes of the show?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:13 AM on November 21, 2008 [4 favorites]

My daughter, too young to remember what life was like before the Crash, huddled up to me as she extended her mittened hands toward the fire. "And airplanes? You said I flew on an airplane once?" she asked.
"Yes", I replied. "You actually liked it." I again told her the stories of conveniences past, of the ways we spent so many hours of the day doing absolutely nothing that is beneficial to us in this cold, hard present.
"What else? What else was there that you haven't told me? I want to know more."
"Well", I took a deep breath and stoked the fire. "We had these things called reality TV game shows."
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 11:14 AM on November 21, 2008 [37 favorites]

And one can only imagine what their parents' reactions were when McCain lost earlier this month.
posted by ericb at 11:14 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

Every time I watch this, I feel a little stronger.

You could watch it more than once? Mind boggles...
posted by fixedgear at 11:16 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

The essential dysfunction of modern society in two and a half minutes.

Things like this depress me terribly.
posted by regicide is good for you at 11:16 AM on November 21, 2008

I don't have sound here, can someone please tell me what it getting them so upset. I can only imagine it's because Ricky from Silver Spoons wasn't picked to join Menudo or something.
posted by Pastabagel at 11:16 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

The Worst Day of My Bush's Life.
posted by gman at 11:17 AM on November 21, 2008 [10 favorites]

Things like this depress me terribly.

Err perhaps you need medication or just some perspective?
posted by xmutex at 11:17 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I hate you.
posted by Burhanistan at 11:18 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

(and you too)
posted by Burhanistan at 11:19 AM on November 21, 2008

Wow gman, that's great.
posted by Dr-Baa at 11:20 AM on November 21, 2008

Ok. No kids for me.

Use condoms.
posted by ericb at 11:20 AM on November 21, 2008 [5 favorites]

can someone please tell me what it getting them so upset...

The girls learn that David Archuleta loses 'American Idol' to David Cook.
posted by ericb at 11:21 AM on November 21, 2008

Man, I've been using combined google searches to prove correlation for god knows how long!

CNN GIVE ME A JOB!
posted by stresstwig at 11:23 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm glad this is the worst thing that youngster has experienced in her life so far. I'm glad she is able to cry over something so shallow and meaningless, that she has room in her psyche and the extra time to get so completely over-invested in a worthless TV talent contest.

Bless her innocence, while she has it.

May she one day appreciate this as the stunning gift it truly was.
posted by batmonkey at 11:23 AM on November 21, 2008 [12 favorites]

Things like this depress me terribly.

Err perhaps you need medication or just some perspective?

Or perhaps he/she lives with some soon to be tweens.

I need some perspective from some parents of tweens. My twin daughters are eight and while I've never seen anything like that, I have seen the group think that tweens self police attitudes with.

My reaction would be to wander in an exclaim if you all are going to sit around crying, I'll give you something to really cry about. (as my dad would have said to me.) But perhaps I'm not being sensitive enopugh of the massive pressures felt by todays tweens. What is the correct response here? And are all 13 year olds so hopelessly emotional over bullshit or just those that took Disney's princesses a little too seriously when they were six?
posted by Keith Talent at 11:24 AM on November 21, 2008

The essential dysfunction of modern society nature of preteen girls in two and a half minutes.

Things like this depress amuse me terribly mildly.

Sorry, dude, I never do this, but FTFY. These are adolescent girls. This is what they are like. I once traversed a Toronto street thronged with Backstreet Boys or NSync fans (I forget which) waiting to be let into Maple Leaf Gardens for a concert, and every minute or so, like clockwork, a wave of uncontrolled primal screaming would go rippling like wildfire over the crowd and then subside, and then there'd be a half-minute's pause, and then a new one would launch again.

It's not depressing. It just is.
posted by gompa at 11:25 AM on November 21, 2008 [4 favorites]

OMG!!!! Like, okay, this is exactly how me and MY friends felt back in the day when Willie Ames was voted "Hottest Cutie of ALL TIME" by Tiger Beat magazine instead of Leif Garrett!!! I know, How could they be so stupid, right?!?!?! I only wish my mother had had the foresight to set up the Super-8 camera to record our devastation for posterity.
posted by amyms at 11:26 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Whatever etc etc

but just remember: these screamibng innocents will someday grow up to be some poor guys ex wives.
posted by Postroad at 11:27 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

(Or, to put it more explicitly, this is as I understand the 12-year-old girl's analogue to the completely random and persistent boner and the pointless arm-punching violence. I remember boners that came on doing long division in Grade 8. I'm not chucking any stones in this glass house.)
posted by gompa at 11:28 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

Excellent. Let their disillusionment with democracy begin early.

[didn't watch thru end]
posted by Busithoth at 11:28 AM on November 21, 2008

Oh man I can't wait until Seth MacFarland and Stewie do something with this.
posted by vito90 at 11:31 AM on November 21, 2008

May she one day appreciate this as the stunning gift it truly was.

Presumably she already does. She posted it with smileys and whatnot. And google indicates this was only 6 months ago, so she's matured remarkably fast. And moved to France, apparently.

Not that I'm saying this is fake.
posted by DU at 11:33 AM on November 21, 2008

A part of me watched this and laughed. And a part watched, remembered when I could feel this passionately about nonsense, and mourned my loss of innocence.

But then the first part of me beat the crap out of the second part of me, laughing the entire time.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:34 AM on November 21, 2008 [7 favorites]

This made me smile.
posted by owtytrof at 11:35 AM on November 21, 2008

Actually, this makes me nostalgic for my 12-year-old self. Being overly-emotional about pop stars and television shows is a completely normal rite of passage.
posted by amyms at 11:35 AM on November 21, 2008

Fabulous. Fabulous.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:35 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

G.M. Hopkins
posted by madamjujujive at 11:36 AM on November 21, 2008 [14 favorites]

but just remember: these screamibng innocents will someday grow up to be some poor guys ex wives.

also pretty likely one of them grows up to be first voted off Survivor
posted by mannequito at 11:36 AM on November 21, 2008

I remember boners that came on doing long division in Grade 8.

This is why I had to black out all the obeli in my textbooks.
posted by designbot at 11:37 AM on November 21, 2008 [4 favorites]

.
posted by Bovine Love at 11:39 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

If you watch carefully you can see the flickering fundamentals of religion and idol worship as cemented by the psychosis of ecstatic mass experience.
posted by loquacious at 11:42 AM on November 21, 2008 [7 favorites]

What's the current accepted handwaving for mass groups of hysterical teenage girls? (Beatlemania, Boy Bands, whatever the hell this is.) Last I heard (or vaugely recalled) it was a combination of mass bonding/group-forming/socialization , "we've all decided to like THIS, THIS much" , dealing with the uncomfortable and powerful feelings of adolescence, and general mass-groups-and-hysterical-release are big general Things Humans Like. No one gets as excited about things like 12-year olds. Think of them as Pop Idol geeks and we can all get along.
posted by The Whelk at 11:43 AM on November 21, 2008

If you don't favorite this comment, I swear I'll NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN!*

*This statement is meant to emulate the teen-girl-ness of this FPP and is not meant to actually solicit favorites. [Oh, by the way, hermitosis is back from username exile!]
posted by not_on_display at 11:44 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Jaysus Christ, you'd think they shot him on the spot....
posted by longsleeves at 11:46 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

psychosis of ecstatic mass experience.


Kathkos?
posted by The Whelk at 11:46 AM on November 21, 2008

If you watch carefully you can see the flickering fundamentals of religion and idol worship as cemented by the psychosis of ecstatic mass experience.

Some will accuse you of hyperbole, no doubt, but when you factor in the quasi-democratic aspect of Idol ("... and the winner, with X million votes is ...") then I think we're in some very interesting territory, so far as cultural criticism or whatever is concerned. I'll leave it up to brighter minds with freer time to explore the implications, whatever they are.

Now, back to fivethirtyeight.com and tracking that Minnesota recount. If Coleman wins, then that will be the WORST. DAY. OF. MY. LIFE.

Aiiiiieeeeee!
posted by joe lisboa at 11:47 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I think I got emotional whiplash coming to this thread from online suicide thread.
posted by RussHy at 11:47 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

er... katharos.

Stupid WORDS.
posted by The Whelk at 11:47 AM on November 21, 2008

In a way I envy these young girls. If that's the most Earth shattering upsetting thing to happen in their young lives, I'd gladly trade places with them in a heartbeat.

My classroom was one of the classrooms set up to do a live link with the Space Shuttle Challenger after they reached orbit for the Teacher in Space Program. We had worked for weeks to get ready for the program and we had all the national news networks filming our reactions as they took off and, well, you know the rest.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:50 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

My 12 year old daughter was voting for David Cook every week. Really.
posted by COD at 11:50 AM on November 21, 2008

Being overly-emotional about pop stars and television shows is a completely normal rite of passage.

True - If that's the kind of environment you're doing your 'passage' in. If you're pampered enough never to have experienced anything real. If you don't have a frame of reference.

Growing up like that is IMO going to increase the chances of people growing up stunted in some way.
posted by krilli at 11:57 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ha! I favourited it anyway.

Does this mean that I can tell you that Tommy Boyd from piano class is like totally hot?
posted by jaduncan at 11:58 AM on November 21, 2008

Sorry if that came out harsh. Just thinking. And I am only apologizing for the delivery, not the message.
posted by krilli at 11:59 AM on November 21, 2008

Nannycam?

Call me back in 8 years when these same girls have their lesbian pillow fights. You know, because I want to believe lesbians actually do that.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:02 PM on November 21, 2008

I'm taking my 13-year-old daughter to see Twilight tonight.

I'm afraid.
posted by MrMoonPie at 12:11 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Wow. I had to ALT-F4 that one.
posted by trip and a half at 12:12 PM on November 21, 2008

DU:
"Presumably she already does. She posted it with smileys and whatnot. And google indicates this was only 6 months ago, so she's matured remarkably fast. And moved to France, apparently."

I figured this was posted by someone who wasn't the involved kid. That was a fairly realistic reaction from the girls and the parents. You know, for the lulz. I was just reacting to the girl who was seemingly wrecked by the event.
posted by batmonkey at 12:14 PM on November 21, 2008

An interesting coincidence...the worst day of my life was when Archuleta's CD was released.

Oh, to be a teenager. They act like second place in American Idol is the end of the poor kid's life; meanwhile, their emotional investment in him only proves that he was already so famous that it didn't matter.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 12:14 PM on November 21, 2008

You know, because I want to believe lesbians actually do that.

Learning otherwise was the worst day of my life.
posted by JaredSeth at 12:20 PM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

Only thing worse than being a teen is all the stuff that comes after that.
posted by Postroad at 12:27 PM on November 21, 2008

Only thing worse than being a teen is all the stuff that comes after that.

Not true. College, for instance, is one's reward for making it through middle and high school. Everything afterwards, of course, is vicious karma for whatever you managed to get away with in college.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:30 PM on November 21, 2008 [6 favorites]

I loled...
posted by schyler523 at 12:32 PM on November 21, 2008

MrMoonPie: oh god. good luck with that. bring riot gear in case things get out of hand.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:34 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I love the littlest girl, in orange, who just kind of looks around like "Wow, you guys are REALLY getting into this! Falling down? Seriously? Hi-LAIR!!"

It's her who looks about her tentatively and makes her utterance the twee, decisive "EFF AMERICA!! *hee*!"

I think she really has it figured out, that one.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:38 PM on November 21, 2008 [12 favorites]

What A. Voyeur said.
posted by joe lisboa at 12:42 PM on November 21, 2008

I'm a single dad with a young daughter and I'm scared.
posted by Sailormom at 12:47 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm taking my 13-year-old daughter to see Twilight tonight.

I'm afraid.

Hehe, I was going to say, are you sure those girls werent actually responding to the first viewing of Twilight?
posted by elendil71 at 12:49 PM on November 21, 2008

I'd love to compare this to a video of a bunch of adult sports fanatics after their favorite teams loses dramatically in the final moment of the superbowl/world series/world cup.
posted by tula at 12:51 PM on November 21, 2008 [8 favorites]

I laughed. I'm guessing that laughter isn't going to be the best response when my daughter gets to that age. I'll have to work on that. It was just so funny though. It was like a caricature of dejection.
posted by diogenes at 12:53 PM on November 21, 2008

I wrote: Being overly-emotional about pop stars and television shows is a completely normal rite of passage.

krilli replied: If you're pampered enough never to have experienced anything real. If you don't have a frame of reference.

Some of us who were once 12-year-old girls who went crazy over pop stars and television shows did so because it provided a harmless respite from the reality of our abusive/dysfunctional families.
posted by amyms at 12:54 PM on November 21, 2008 [5 favorites]

I'd love to compare this to a video of a bunch of adult sports fanatics after their favorite teams loses dramatically in the final moment of the superbowl/world series/world cup.

I agree, but: HURF DURF SOCCER-NEEDER
posted by joe lisboa at 12:54 PM on November 21, 2008

Wow, that's exactly the reaction I had when I learned David Tennant was leaving Doctor Who.
posted by you're a kitty! at 1:05 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Okay, I just watched it again with AV's comment in mind, and I completely agree. Keep your eyes on the girl in orange. She is so clearly only barely even pretending to be on the same wavelength as the rest of them, and half the time just can't even help but laugh at her friends.

Also, that "EFF AMERICA!!" moment is, indeed, awesome.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:05 PM on November 21, 2008

THE MOST PERFECT VIDEO ON ALL THE INTARNETS.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 1:05 PM on November 21, 2008 [24 favorites]

diogenes: I laugh at stuff like that now. I can't see it changing. She'll thank me for it, one day.
posted by rusty at 1:11 PM on November 21, 2008

AWESOME. That bearded guy fucking sucks.
posted by fungible at 1:15 PM on November 21, 2008

diogenes: It was like a caricature of dejection.

This is actually what I find really fascinating about this video (by the by, part of my PhD work is on affect and emotion, this isn't some sort of sick hobby....oh, wait....).

For me, this video actually provides an excellent example of "emotional learning" in process. Like many adolescent children, these girls aren't quite yet "fluent" in expressing emotion; oh yes, they're experiencing very real emotions alright, but they way it surfaces on their bodies is in an overwrought form. Like bad actors overplaying their roles. If you watch the girls at the moment of disappointment, they each have their own "style" of expressing shock and horror, which they each play to the hilt. One is doing the "shocked quiet" thing, one is doing the "hands clasped over nose and mouth, shake head and sob" thing, one is just screaming inarticulately, one is throwing her body around like she wants to hurt herself, etc.

Anyway, in the context of their lives, this probably sucks really hard, but it might also animate their day with excitement and intensity. Modern Western society still expects girls to be emotionally articulate when they enter adulthood, so these moments of hysterical drama sort of make sense in the same way that playfighting, risk-taking and "toughness" does for boys.
posted by LMGM at 1:18 PM on November 21, 2008 [31 favorites]

Turns out there are worse fates than that despondent girl's. In particular, when she wakes up tomorrow morning with the ache of her American Idol candidate's loss already starting to fade, she won't be named Bronx Mowgli Wentz.

So she's got that going for her. Which is nice.
posted by gompa at 1:20 PM on November 21, 2008

I have not laughed harder at anything in weeks.
posted by weston at 1:21 PM on November 21, 2008

Ahahaha, that was hilarious!
posted by ghastlyfop at 1:31 PM on November 21, 2008

I love the littlest girl, in orange

Yes! She is like the still, sane fixture at the center of this girlish storm, keenly aware that strange things are occurring around her—that sudden realization that you are in the presence of a social ritual to which you have not previously been a subscriber. She's a lot of fun to watch throughout.
posted by cortex at 1:34 PM on November 21, 2008 [7 favorites]

Except that preteen girls actually have a legitimate excuse for being in their parents' basement.

What's yours.
posted by Zambrano at 2:07 PM on November 21, 2008

Agreed about the girl in orange. I saw myself in her, trying to emulate the people around me, but not really clicking in to how everyone else is getting so worked up over whatever-it-is.
posted by lostburner at 2:13 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Why is the title in French? "Le plus horrible jour de ma vie"
posted by zorro astor at 2:18 PM on November 21, 2008

I'm taking my 13-year-old daughter to see Twilight tonight.

Best of luck!

"If the squealing fangirls at the advance screening I attended are any indication, you Twilighters will go nuts at the introduction of each character, at the lifting of dialogue directly from the book, and at the brooding, yearning glances shared by the story’s star-crossed lovers."^*

posted by ericb at 2:21 PM on November 21, 2008

Amyms wrote "Some of us who were once 12-year-old girls who went crazy over pop stars and television shows did so because it provided a harmless respite from the reality of our abusive/dysfunctional families."

Point taken. I'm not sure that was what was going on in the video, though.
posted by krilli at 2:24 PM on November 21, 2008

Why is the title in French? "Le plus horrible jour de ma vie"

Because the person (cricri344) who posted it is French.
posted by ericb at 2:26 PM on November 21, 2008

The comment thread is better than the video.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 2:43 PM on November 21, 2008

The horror. The horror.
posted by never used baby shoes at 3:24 PM on November 21, 2008

krilli, I wasn't insinuating that that's what was going on in the video, sheesh. I was just responding to your assertion that girls who get overly-emotional over pop stars are somehow exhibiting signs of a pampered life. From my personal experience, one has nothing to do with the other.

Now, since I've made my point, I'll go back to reminiscing about my Tiger Beat hotties of yore.
posted by amyms at 4:03 PM on November 21, 2008

I tried to think back to my earliest memory of extreme heartbreak over something so ultimately inconsequential, and recalled my reaction to NC State beating Houston at the buzzer in '83, when I was 11.

I think I was a little more composed, but I can empathize with the sentiment.
posted by Brak at 4:04 PM on November 21, 2008

This is like the Miss Teen Magazine version of 45 year old D&D nerds shrieking at the loss of their +3 Sword of Beholdening.

+3, pfft. I clean my teeth with nothing less than +4
posted by waraw at 4:22 PM on November 21, 2008

Great composition between the figures in almost every minute of that video. Really iconic.
posted by fire&wings at 4:41 PM on November 21, 2008

I would also like to express my interest in the girl in orange, so composed and kinda..befuddled at all this. Trying to fit in, but not ..quite getting it and maybe wanting to move on to pizza and soda now, okay?

I also felt for the tall gangly girl over-selling all her emotions at the start. Trying so hard. Being a cheerleader. It's kind of this perfect snapshot of preteenish life and left me thinking of the various basement rec rooms I was in, overjoyed, trying too hard, suddenly detached, working out whatever dynamic was going on that I was both oblivious to and totally inside.

I can overthink the fate of teens. Sure.
posted by The Whelk at 5:49 PM on November 21, 2008 [4 favorites]

I am so glad no was filming my Buffy Club in Micheal Santangelo's basement, is what I'm saying.



and of course half those guys would turn out to be gay and I would manage to to hit on the straight geeks. Always. Story. Of. My. Life.
posted by The Whelk at 5:52 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I liked how the kept calling him a loser. Even though he won, and the guy they had been cheering for was, literally and obviously, the loser.
posted by paisley henosis at 5:53 PM on November 21, 2008

"Some of us who were once 12-year-old girls who went crazy over pop stars and television shows did so because it provided a harmless respite from the reality of our abusive/dysfunctional families."

There was a Top 100 Countdown of the Year that used to come in the radio in my hometown (and I presume many other home towns) that served for me this kind of purpose. For those hours spent glued to the radio, I could forget the gross things my body was doing, forget how my only real friend was just using me to have someone to talk to at the bus stop, forget the numbing, muted shell I spent my days walking around in and forget the self-destructive behavior of different family members and just listen as the countdown reached closer ... and closer ... to picking are you kidding me Juice Newton over Dexy's Midnight Runners?!?!?!?!?! This is the worst thing ever!!!!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:55 PM on November 21, 2008 [4 favorites]

How far off base is this compared to crime statistics and reports of domestic violence in a city which just lost a major championship game; say along the lines of The Super Bowl?
posted by captainsohler at 6:09 PM on November 21, 2008

I recall hearing one of the girls say something about how badly teased they'll (she'll) be at school. Presumably, they've (she's) been shooting her mouth off bigtime about how #2 was gonna be #1. A lot of the tears could be panic over being picked on.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:18 PM on November 21, 2008

Marisa: Oh god, yes.

I had my big moment at Disney World of all places. Robotics Club. We where the returning champions for the FIRST robotics championship! Team 25! whooo! I wasn't actually involved in the ..robot parts. I documented it. The club camera operator. I got in cause I loved Mr. Cokeley cause he was a great science teacher and kinda knew I needed to meld with other total geeks and nerds. Anyway, it's all focused and being obsessive about rankings until we Get. To. Orlando. And I start filming non-stop. It was my first time out of New Jersey. I wanted to record everything.

So we get there, staying at the New Orleans-style hotel, and I do the thing that NPR told me I should do, interviews and B-rolls. I had almost unlimited film, so I did that instead of helping out with the actual robot bits. I fall madly in love with one boy. He's part of the tech crew in Theater club, he did the servos! he's Just as obsessive as I am! We do alot of talking and jumping about the various robots and teams and I don't care so much cause I can't stop looking into his eyes cause I'm 15 and I think I'm in love. I jump a lot.

Anyway, we're defeated. In, what is told in screaming fits, a totally unfair match. I kinda vanished for a while, wandering around Disney World in the dark. I randomly bump into said Love Object and get very animated about our loss, our placing, the other teams being stupid horrible retards who fellated judges, ect ect He end up walking around Tomorrowland and Epoct, just talking. I'm still filming, of course. I think he's hitting on me. I hope he is. I have no idea what hitting on looks like. I decide future favors the brave and say,

"I have Blade Rudder up in my room. I rbought a tape. You can come up and watch it. Justin (my roomate) won't be there."

I give him my hotel key.

"okay, sure"

I go back to my hotel room, now without my key and Justin is, like I said, not there. I wait outside, holding my huge camera. On hour. Two. Three. Four.

Eventually Justin shows up from whatever odd Disney Debauch he was at and lets me in. I go to bed.

Back home, safe inside the Media club. I edit down the 68 hours of footage to a nice, neat 45 minute documentary on scrappy teenagers going for the gold. I even put in music montages.

The day after we get back, the Boy I gave my key too gives me a solid beating in the south lawn of my Progressive Liberal Private School.

The documentary was shown the whole school the day after.

I dropped out of Robotics and Theater.
posted by The Whelk at 6:26 PM on November 21, 2008 [4 favorites]

After awhile I learned that females are always in a mirror.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 6:30 PM on November 21, 2008

God, that was funny. The best part was when the moms walked in and had to pretend to take it all seriously.

Come on, they're kids. They're supposed to be excited about silly things.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:46 PM on November 21, 2008

Teh Awesome!
posted by humannaire at 6:51 PM on November 21, 2008

Man. I just do not know if I can be That Mom someday. I am going to have a realllllly hard time turning down the snarkfilter when this goes down in our house many years from now. You know, when the cute reptile boy from the Horseshoe Nebula wins the Space Olympics instead of All American Heartthrob Robot #1 or whatevs. It'll just be so easy to laugh at them!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:04 PM on November 21, 2008

favorited for being teh awesome.
posted by liza at 7:32 PM on November 21, 2008

Oh yes, I remember those days. I cried inconsolably over wrongs committed on the Oscars and the MTV music awards. Things like that were just so important. Yes, its silly, but thats just the way tweens are. I laughed my ass off at this video-I just remember so well what it was like. That being said, these girls fed off each other-probably none would have flipped out so bad if the others weren't there.

I have two girls, 5 yrs and 2 months old. God help me in 5 years.
posted by aacheson at 7:42 PM on November 21, 2008

In 2001 when the University of Arizona lost to Duke in the NCAA men's basketball finals my then 13 yo daughter fell apart very much like the girls shown in the video.

I'm not saying that American Idol is any less a media spectacle than college basketball, but...
posted by pianomover at 7:51 PM on November 21, 2008

How far off base is this compared to crime statistics and reports of domestic violence in a city which just lost a major championship game; say along the lines of The Super Bowl?

Yup, the vid's hilarious, but these pre-teen females are demonstrating something that's in males too. I remember my dad taking me to a stock car race at that age and me picking, for some completely meaningless reason - who knows, maybe the name color or number - one car to cheer for and then yelling for it the whole time. It didn't win, leaving me with a intense sense of loss. I still remember the name color and number of that car.
posted by scheptech at 7:53 PM on November 21, 2008

i was really tuned into how nice the mom was. calm, gentle, non-shaming. really, really nice. that's a very lucky daughter, i reckon.

the next time something bad happens, it might actually be something bad, and the daughter's not gonna have to worry that her mom isn't gonna want to hear about it. that's security.
posted by facetious at 7:53 PM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

I've never watched American Idol, and I don't know any adolescent girls.

I loved this. It's better than 90% of the video art I've seen in Chelsea in the last few years.
posted by neroli at 7:53 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

In 2001 when the University of Arizona lost to Duke in the NCAA men's basketball finals my then 13 yo daughter fell apart very much like the girls shown in the video.

Come to think of it, that's pretty much how I reacted, at age nine, to the 49ers beating Dallas in the NFC Championship Game. Yes, I'm talking about The Catch.

How hard did it suck being on the down side of that moment? I was definitely the only kid within a thousand miles of my school in northern Alberta who was an ardent Everson Walls fan. I didn't scream and wail, but man was I glum and angry. I remember feeling a profound hollow sense of loss for a few days afterward. I don't even watch pro football anymore, but that first heartbreak is indeed the hardest . . .
posted by gompa at 8:44 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just sent a link to this video to the oldest friend I'm still in contact with, because it's exactly how our group of girls reacted when she opened her 11th birthday present - a t-shirt with the hottie-dude-of-the-day's picture on it (in our case, it was Roger Daltry in "Tommy." Which somehow we all had seen, tho it was rated R).

Hysteria with a gang-o-girls over stupid shit like this was a both a blast and big exercise in anxiety for me, as I bet it still is for girls like the one in the video who obviously doesn't care as much as her friends do. Your gang's overwhelmed; do you go along with it? Or do you acknowledge that it doesn't mean much to you?

Stuff like this can really take up a lot of one's pre-teen mind. I doubt it's different for boys, tho the object of fascination is not the same.
posted by goofyfoot at 8:45 PM on November 21, 2008

This was pretty great.
posted by graventy at 8:50 PM on November 21, 2008

Goofyfoot, you bring up a good point. What do you do when you don't get what the gang is doing? Ugh, this video made me laugh but the more i think about it the more it brings back the angst of that time. I remember this really popular girl who i so desperately wanted to be best friends with making a HUGE deal over Tom Cruise in Risky Business and I just didn't get it very much. And ditto about Bruce Springsteen and a few other things. I so wanted to be cool like her but was befuddled about what was the big deal.

But I threw nuclear hissy fits myself about other things, as stated earlier.

Man, being a 11-16 year old girl just sucks. All the way around.
posted by aacheson at 9:32 PM on November 21, 2008

The deed is done. MrMoonPie lives.

It wasn't that bad. I worked really hard to be like the mom in the video, not condescending and patronizing, and I think I did OK. The 200ml bottle of Grey Goose I snuck in helped (hey, I shared it with the MrsMoonPie).
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:52 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

This is why I am working on the Children's Illustrated Epictetus and Think like an Emperor! A Young Person's Guide to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
I want my children to have a sober mind not one overidentified with and vicariously inhabiting the phantoms of popular culture.
posted by MasonDixon at 9:56 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: I dropped out of Robotics and Theater.
posted by Hat Maui at 9:57 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I doubt it's different for boys, tho the object of fascination is not the same.

I'm pretty sure it is almost completely different. It's a completely different set of hormones, for starters, and a completely different social/cultural role. I don't think the experience is as intense, nor as frequent. All in all, I think boys have it much, much easier.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:09 PM on November 21, 2008

But the groupthink must be similar, don't you think?
posted by goofyfoot at 10:30 PM on November 21, 2008

Ah, I remember what it was like to be that age, and younger. Anyone who hasn't been a pre-teen girl can have fun reading all sorts of things into her tears, and why they lasted so long, but I sort of understand.

She looks enough like an adult that we expect her to cry like an adult, but she's crying like a kid. And when you're a kid, crying is all-encompassing and overwhelming and sometimes you just keep crying until you've physically exhausted yourself. You start out crying for a reason, and then, you're just crying. That's when moms are wonderful.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 11:06 PM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

freshwater_pr0n: She looks enough like an adult that we expect her to cry like an adult, but she's crying like a kid. And when you're a kid, crying is all-encompassing and overwhelming and sometimes you just keep crying until you've physically exhausted yourself. You start out crying for a reason, and then, you're just crying. That's when moms are wonderful.

This is actually a very good point. From what I remember of reading on emotional development in children and such, the ability to voluntarily halt or dampen your affective system is something that develops later in life (and, for folks who've experienced childhood trauma, they risk never developing it). This is why infants cry themselves to sleep and why we learn to wait for toddlers' tantrums to subside rather than stop them. Similarly, that why, when you have a little kid and s/he falls down and bonks something, you have only a few seconds to distract and calm him or her before the crying starts; once it's on, it's on until s/he runs out of steam.

So while I stand by my original argument that this has a lot to do with "practicing" emotional behavior and learning to become emotionally eloquent, they've also wound themselves up very tightly and they can't just turn that off at the moment of disappointment.
posted by LMGM at 1:53 AM on November 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Also, that "EFF AMERICA!!" moment is, indeed, awesome.

I wish she'd *really* said EFF AMERICA!!, because I'd love to see the neo-con hate for a twelve year old child as the Dept. of Homeland Security drag her off to Gitmo, but what she actually said was EFF AMERICAN IDOL!! which isn't *quite* as radical.

It's more like saying 'Americans, your favourite TV show sucks!' I expect to see her here in a couple of years. She'll fit right in.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:45 AM on November 22, 2008

I want my children to have a sober mind not one overidentified with and vicariously inhabiting the phantoms of popular culture.

Oh go on, just say it. You know you want to. I'll help you out by saying it with you.

"Is this something I'd need a television to understand?"
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:56 AM on November 22, 2008

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints, that video really was the best of the web. thank you!
posted by pants at 4:06 AM on November 22, 2008

But the groupthink [in boy groups] must be similar, don't you think?

That, I don't know: I was a rather unsocial boy, and I don't recall ever getting caught up in the mass delusion of crowds. P'raps some of our socialized gentlement can tell us what it was like being a typical boy at The Hormonal Stage¹.

¹Unnecessary hard-ons that you could set your watch by. There must be a daily surge of hormones that come on like clockwork at that age.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:22 AM on November 22, 2008

hey, I shared it with the MrsMoonPie

If you're MrMoonPie, shouldn't you be with MrsRC?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:34 AM on November 22, 2008

I'm pretty sure it is almost completely different [for boys].

I think the broad equivalent is a bunch of grown men blubbering on each other because their favored sporting association lost.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:50 AM on November 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

There are days when I'm so proud of humanity that I get this welling up inside, like when we elected Obama president, then there are times like this, when I pray for a comet to smash us all.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:15 PM on November 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

I think the broad equivalent is a bunch of grown men blubbering on each other because their favored sporting association lost.

Guys typically act out differently but it could be seen as the same intense identification with some procedure they actually have little to do with and whose outcome only affects them because they've decided it does.
posted by scheptech at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2008

THE MOST PERFECT VIDEO ON ALL THE INTARNETS.

And then I get all my hope right back. Beautiful.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:23 PM on November 22, 2008

I want my children to have a sober mind not one overidentified with and vicariously inhabiting the phantoms of popular culture.

Best of luck with that one. Maybe you can ask for some input from my parents, who played classical greats 24/7 in my home, only to stand by years later, baffled, to see their child gleefully dancing to Duran Duran.

Guys typically act out differently but it could be seen as the same intense identification with some procedure they actually have little to do with and whose outcome only affects them because they've decided it does.

How is this different than a group of preteen girls experiencing intense identification with the climb-to-the-top of their favorite Idol singer, who've all decided the outcome effects them?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:14 PM on November 22, 2008

On second reading, I see you were saying the same thing, scheptech. My apologies.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:17 PM on November 22, 2008

I want my children to have a sober mind not one overidentified with and vicariously inhabiting the phantoms of popular culture.

Um, sort of, but I'd be disappointed if I had a kid who didn't do dumb, social things like what we see in this video. We can't be geeks all the time.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:51 AM on November 23, 2008

We can't be geeks all the time.

Pah! And a good day to you, sir-ruh.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:45 AM on November 23, 2008 [2 favorites]

I too have a daughter, but I seem to be the only one around here that is looking forward to her as a tween. Sure, it's a tough age to work with, but I love Jr. High kids (no, you sick bastard). They still are full of childhood innocence and idealism and enthusiasm, but you can start to talk to them on an adult level. They have opinions of their own and can express them, sure their opinions are often fantastically naive and impractical in the real world, but still beautifully idealistic.

Anyway, I look forward to that. Also I look forward to doing things like walking in to the gym to pick her up from the dance right as she s about to make-out with her awkward, brace-faced, zitty, two-foot shorter "boyfriend" while wearing shorts, black socks pulled up to my knees, and birkenstocks.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:11 AM on November 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

You know, Pollomacho, it is pretty cool.
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:06 AM on November 24, 2008

They still are full of childhood innocence and idealism and enthusiasm, but you can start to talk to them on an adult level.

I like the sound of that. I'm going to look forward to that, and try to purge this video from my mind :)
posted by diogenes at 8:16 AM on November 24, 2008

You know, minus the being a preteen girl and screaming and crying, I felt the same way when I heard that David Cook had won. He's a yarling hack.
posted by limeonaire at 6:47 PM on November 24, 2008