Years ago, I used to be bullied for being a bookworm. It was odd. I even had a classmate take one of my books, rip it up, and throw it into the trash bin. Nowadays, I see kids reading openly without having to hide their books. What was up with the anti-intellectual attitudes when I was younger? It's nice to see that that's not generally accepted.
So much has changed since I was younger––it's okay to be a "nerd" in more ways than one. Does anyone really get bullied for reading comic books anymore, for instance? Especially when Marvel films dominate the box office?
People were keen to share their observations after Redditor xtaliaw asked the online community,
"What is something you were bullied for growing up that has now become a trend?"
"I used to get bullied..."
"I used to get bullied for my thick eyebrows. Now I get complimented. Weird to hear, "I like your eyebrows." Never thought that would be something to compliment."
"Then Nirvana and grunge blew up..."
"My freshman year of college in the early '90s my roommates all made fun of me and called me a hillbilly for wearing flannel/plaid shirts. Then Nirvana and grunge blew up and it was a sea of flannel as far as the eye could see!"
My, how things change.
Everyone wants to be as cool as Nirvana––still!
"Kimchi and lettuce wraps..."
"Korean food. Kimchi and lettuce wraps were not cool when I was a kid."
Shame, because they're delicious. I hope those people regret their bland diets!
"Now it's cool..."
"Wearing hand me down clothes. Now it's "vintage" and "cool" to shop at places like Goodwill or secondhand stores."
This correct. The style nowadays is "Manic Pixie Dream Girl Who Lives in Bushwick and Wears Clogs."
"Now there are cheerleaders..."
"Comic books.
Like, I had a cool symbiote Spider-Man shirt. But I didn't dare wear it in school.
Now there are cheerleaders wearing Thor shirts, and people on the street know who the Guardians of the Galaxy are. Granted, none of the characters they know were in the Guardians that I grew up with. But they know the title."
"I get stopped..."
"My hair. I have tons of it and it's very curly. Sometimes my cousins would call me Marge Simpson.
Then natural hair care actually became a thing and I learned to embrace my hair. Now it's my signature. I get stopped a few times a week (sometimes a few times a day) by people to tell me they love my hair."
"Women have surgery..."
"Having a big butt. Women have surgery to get butts like I've always had now, but being a young person in the late 90s/early 2000s when the trend was to be underweight with a flat @ss was loads of fun."
The Kardashians really changed things around there, didn't they?
Ummm... thanks, Kim? We guess.
"They took a huge jump in popularity..."
"Video games. They took a huge jump in popularity from now I was a kid, and now all my high school bullies are posting about Animal Crossing."
"It blows me away..."
"Freckles. It blows me away that people get freckles tattooed on their bodies now."
Wait... wait... wait...
People do this?!
"I was both."
"Being weird. Being alternative. I was both. Made fun of horribly, and now the people who bullied me are going around embracing their 'weird' side."
I guess you could say things have largely changed for the better. It's nice to see kids being more accepting nowadays. Bullying just isn't tolerated on the same level it was when I was a kid. That's a plus in my book.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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