I knew they were popular. If they weren’t, I never would’ve found them. I didn’t even know this journalling community existed. I stumbled upon Dawson’s Wrap because I was a closet Creek freak. The Wrap became MBTV,which led me to Sars who led me to pamie. The rest, as they say, is history.
They’re incredible writers, they’re funny and they’re real. So of course they get a gazillion hits a day.
But what I didn’t know is that there are bitter people out there pissed off because the "famous" journallers don’t re-link to them, or don’t read them blue bleeh blah. How stupid is this? They flame the pamies and stees and Sarses (sari?) of the journal world for being cliquish or not embracing them into the fold.
And this became their responsibility, when exactly? And even if they are in a clique, even if they like their small group small, who cares?
I am about the last person in the world to criticize cliques. I’ve lived my entire life in them. Anyone who says they’re disgusted by cliques etc., just hasn’t stopped to notice their own clique, their own group, and the standards they, although perhaps silently, set for membership.
My childhood friends and I were just a bit more blatant about it.
I’m actually a little embarrassed telling you this story, the one about the little Texas girls who thought they ruled the school, but it happened and I can’t change the way I behaved then.
There were five of us – we met in kindergarten, we lived in the same subdivision, we were in the same Girl Scout troop (3036, baby) and we were in the same classes all through elementary.
At some point we gave ourselves a name – The Lavender Ladies – and we each had a position in the club. I was the treasurer, which was a huge error since I spent all our dues on candy. A buck twenty-five a week and we thought we’d have our purple Members Only jackets embroidered with our names in no time.
We didn’t talk to other girls a whole lot. Although they, sadly enough, practically begged us to. Imagine Heathers with fourth graders, okay?
We taunted them, saying they could join our club if they did certain things – memorize a rhyme, cross the monkey bars backwards in 20 seconds, or beat Pagina at the 50 yard dash. And if they’d actually do it? We’d just change the rules – oh yeah, you have to do this too. So it wasn’t us being exclusionary, it’s just that no one met the requirements. The line was that fine.
I doubt I could explain how much this horrified my mother. She was our GS leader for crying out loud, and here I was being the worst example of a scout, like, ever.
Sure, there were other girls on the edges – Maggie, Louda, T, Chassie, Kim – but we never let them IN.
And as all iron-fist rulers do, we fell.
Junior high crushed us. Three elementary schools pooled into one intermediate and as it turned out, the clique from Krahn was too strong for us. They overpowered us and became the popular group of the school. And as all these stories go, the infighting began and the Krahn girls only accepted one of us. We broke up. Then Michelle’s parents shipped themselves off to retirement wonderland in Florida and there were no more meetings of the Lavender Ladies. No more Girl Scout camping trips. No more us.
I wish I could say we’re all still friends, and I guess in a roundabout way we are. I’m still close with one, who’s close with another, who keeps in touch with the one who moved away. The one who got sucked in with the Krahn girls floats in and out of contact. She’s the one who broke all our hearts. She was the ringleader, and even to this day I find myself longing for her friendship, her approval.
And I guess that’s how some newbie journallers feel. They want the big guns to like them, they want lots of hits and praise and email and attention. And they hate that they want it. Hate that they want this person’s approval. So they go into attack mode instead.
But even if a Big Gun did compliment you. Link to you. That’s not real. That’s not why you write, is it?
Like I’ve said before, I didn’t start this journey to become popular. Or because I want people who inspire me to link to me and give me big hits. I did this because I want to write. I want to tell my stories. I want to remember what it was like to stay up all night and scribble and dream. I want my passion back.
That, to me, is real.
