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entertaining u newspaper: your monthly guide to entertainment
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By Brenton Crozier
February would never make a good poker player. It has so many tells and plays out like a repeat of a show that you only feel indifferent about. You immediately hear the bitterness of the single, the trepidation of the nearly involved, the rare excitement of the one person you know that is still in the “my relationship is awesome” period and the utter frustration of the married or at least spoken for. Inevitably, the quips roll as if scripted: “This is such a Hallmark invented holiday,” “Why does she need a special day and gift to know how much I love her,” “Do you know how hard it is to get a table?” Was Valentine’s Day inserted into February simply to sexy it up a bit? I’m not really sure and guess I have fallen into a couple of the aforementioned camps myself. But this issue isn’t about those people.
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This is about the true lonely hearts . . . the socially awkward caterpillars that may or may not like being caterpillars, but are either not yet (or never want to be) butterflies. What’s so great about a butterfly? Sure, they’re graceful, pretty and fancy free, but seriously, they taste with their feet. That’s just gross. Some are so introverted that they would feel more comfortable with a cocoon categorization. For these caterpillars or cocoons, the Internet was a type of rebirth. Don’t get all Nicodemus on me, you know what I’m talking about. This new, virtual society where everyone is on an even playing field has opened new possibilities for the socially challenged.
My original intention was to scour bad dating sites, for that matter, all dating sites, but found myself a bit creeped out by it all. These types of social platforms cross the great barrier, encouraging participants to steadily evolve their virtual, ideal relationship to a real, incarnate one. So instead, I set out to find sites celebrating those that either are and always will be proudly different, socially awkward, hip challenged or whatever euphemism you want to use.
Get Mortified is quite the community, celebrating nerds at their nerdiest. There are so many fantastic elements throughout this site, be sure to take some time and click through. “Woe and Tell” captures the true essence of the site and can be accessed by clicking on the featured woe. People submit both text and photo woes that span yearbook pictures, love letters, diary submissions and bad stories. Members are then asked to rate them on a scale of Least Mortifying, Sorta Mortifying, Okay Now You’re Starting to Scare Me, Seek Therapy and Most Mortifying. Everything is completely hysterical, but the best, are the photo submissions. Whatever you do, don’t miss Super Bort.
Think Freaks and Geeks meets Pump up the Volume wrapped in one self-deprecating online home. The Mortified crew takes their show on the road and sells items that celebrate teen awkwardness and angst. Eff the cool kids and eff the establishment!
Awkwardness is never really learned or amassed over time, but rather takes its roots from the start. It may be partially inherited, but it seems like it’s an intrinsic feature that may or may not go away over time. School Portrait Day is simply that – the pictures of our youth that we look back and say, for the love of aesthetic sensibility, Mom or Dad, you let me go to picture day like that? Furthermore, did I always look like that? These pictures are quite fantastic, and my favorite is Troy’s kindergarten picture from 1976, where he is sporting a Fonzie shirt. Got a bad portrait yourself? Submit it! Make it part of this fabulously geeky collection.
Good luck to everyone and their Valentine’s Day hopes and wishes, but especially to those that embrace their awkwardness and have found that like person or partner and realized, I’m not so weird, screw normal, it’s boring anyway. And for those who are still wildly introverted and alone, Thursdays are usually a good night for TV. And for further interesting tidbits about butterflies, you can visit milkweedcafe.com/fascfacts.html or indianchild.com/butterfly.htm.
Article Published in the 2-14-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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