by Laota French

Everyone is unique; no two human beings are positively identical. We like being special, or better yet, exceptional , but when it comes to categorizing ourselves, we lump in with as many plebeians as we can to feel accepted. Truth be told, people are so different, the only way to classify them is by the way they think; the choices they make; the way they see themselves and others. In this tack, there are only three classifications of people: Full-on Prep, Hard-core Morbid, and everyone in between. That’s exactly the way it is, but most people don’t know that. But why? Simple, children. Because there’s a group of people who don’t want you to know. The same group that’s been making you feel bad about yourself since kindergarten. Preps. Call them Fakes, Preppies, Squares, Soces, Straights, or Corny Hair Dolls, their the competitive, greedy, elitist jerks who wouldn’t know real beauty, intelligence, honesty, talent, or an original thought, if it snuck up behind them and punched them in the skull with a faucet to drain the vicious stupidity from their heads and watch it leak out and run down the back of their necks like maple syrup. But I’m not bitter.

In the Roman fashion, Preps divide people for their own prosperity as early as grade school, assorting us by otherwise meaningless aspects of our outward persona- charm, money, appearance, athleticism, and intellect- and claim themselves as the Alphas, the ones that always win. Our souls are completely ignored and we’re manhandled into small groups of disgruntled children, having our spirits broken by parents and teachers who’ve been allowing this weeding-out process to go on for far too long. Why separate us like this? Because we don’t think less than half a dozen angry, unpopular people can upset a social structure of hundreds. We don’t realize that between the two extremes of humanity lies a huge chuck of dangerously important, frighteningly similar people who can turn the tide. Instead of standing up to these kids, we fall all over ourselves trying to be like them, scared to death of being different, which we just can’t help. But the need to climb the metaphoric ladder is so great, most of us would sellout our best friend to impress the Alphas.

But what is this full-on morbid? By morbid, I mean so very much yourself, so isolated, you become like a different species, your individuality creating different languages, modes of dress, and rules of engagement. (When preppies run out of fashion fodder, they always turn to the subcultures, ripping us off with watered-down, formulaic parody, until you find pre-ripped “Rotten” shirts at Walmart.) Very different from the other two groups, we Morbid actually start out like everyone else- with the choice, chance, and potential to do - or not do - anything at all, but we had the misfortune of failing at social checkpoints, being labeled as misfits of one kind or another. In Misfit Classification #1, failure by our elders to teach us mind games and ladder climbing leaves us labeled immediately as troublemakers. Beats, Punks, Freaks, Geeks, Goths, etc., we are no longer valued as human beings.

I, Laota French, belong to Misfit Classification #2: The Leftys. See, with the harsher cases, the misfits think and work in unexpected ways. They’re like the left-handed of old, raised by an ignorant and thoughtless society to work with our rights. When you aren’t allowed the freedom of method, you might as well be living with one hand tied behind your back, ’cause no matter your potential or intellect, you’ll never do as well as your peers. The frustration of the mental/emotional/physical Leftys comes from spending all their energies on walking the line between Genius and Madness, terrified of dying in the water. We see things that no one else sees, and we work that into our art, whatever that may be.

In the cases of Misfit Classifications #1 and #2, we are pariahs. So, shallow social lives out of the question, we develop and perfect ourselves and skills to the point of pure apotheosis. We must be who we are, and morbidly so.

But talent and substance mean nothing in our adolescent worlds. We are tortured for our differences- not only by the Preps, but by the kids who used to play ball with us and send us valentines. You every wonder why most of us are so damned depressed? It’s because we’re treated like crap, starting at- roughly- birth, and on and on, until we’re dead. We’re expected to believe that, whilst everyone else is “normal,” we, by being unique, are stupid, boring, weak, disgusting, awkward, ugly, unwanted, useless creatures that were born to fail and are better off dead. That kind of conditioning can lead to suicide- that means heaving enough unnecessary pain on an innocent individual, that they’d choose a horrid and uncertain death over the *inherent will to live*. And why would a normally good, average child push a harmless peer to suicide unprovoked? Because, naturally, they’re afraid of being treated by the popular kids the way everyone treats the Beats. The second use of the social ladder is to keep folks so afraid of upsetting the people “above” them, they end up treating the shallow, useless, two-dimensional Alphas like gods. Example: Julia Roberts sucks and nobody notices, whereas Joss Wheadon rocks, and people can’t wait to tell him how much he sucks.

You might get offended at my use of Julia Roberts. You might think, “Hey! I like Julia, does that make me a prep?” One thing straight, liking a lame actress is not the deal sealer on you being a Prep. It’s not a matter of taste, it’s about character, or lack thereof. Preps are raised on self-promoting, social terrorism, while good but more or less shallow kids are bread to encourage and embellish their preppier aspects: Looks, charm, wealth, athleticism. Whatever virtues else these kids have are disregarded, leaving them with only a few glory days before they wash up with no talent and end up working at some fast-food joint, hating themselves and not knowing why. Morbid people are morbidly themselves because we realized before suicide or fast-food service that all this winners and losers crap is stupid. We got jaded and fed up with being lied to, and chose not to follow the leader. Say you’re not preppy, or morbid, but you don’t wanna be stuck in the middle? Well, do something about it. Crack a book, for Todd’s sake! I suggest Twain.