7

Thursday, May 27, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

The week begins with the 

Moon in Scorpio from May 24 to 
25. The Scorpio Moon unearths 
our 
innermost 
desires 
and 

emotions, and lets us face them 
in all their intensity. Dig deep 
into your mind and abandon any 
fears or limiting beliefs.

The powerful energy of the 

Scorpio Moon transitions into 
the even brighter full Moon and 
a lunar eclipse in Sagittarius 
on May 26. The full Moon 
brings each sign closure, and 
the eclipse magnifies the full 

Moon’s power. Now is the time 
to make peace with your past 
and confidently move forward 
with your life.

Venus 
squares 
Neptune 

on May 27, leaving everyone 
slightly on edge and prone to 
disappointment. Be careful to 
communicate clearly. On May 
28 the Moon enters Capricorn, 
which can motivate us to be very 
productive and work tirelessly 
toward our success.

Mercury begins its dreaded 

retrograde cycle on May 29, 
and it will exit its retrograde 
phase on June 22. Mercury is 
currently in Gemini, whose 
flippant nature indicates that 

each sign will need to face 
many changes at the same time. 
Remain flexible in order to 
transform Mercury retrograde’s 
challenges into opportunities. 
On the same day, Mercury 
forms a conjunction with Venus, 
which brings cheerfulness and 
lighthearted merriment.

The Moon enters Aquarius 

on May 30, which encourages 
us to think of new ideas, revise 
our usual routines and interact 
with others. The week closes 
on a high note with Mars 
forming a trine with Neptune, 
which boosts our creativity 
and energizes us for the week 
ahead.

It was jean shorts and a 

cropped 
tank 
top, 
probably 

because we were in the middle of 
a hot summer, and it was a cute 
outfit that let them stay cool. 
Crowds of girls walked around 
campus wearing similar outfits. 
I didn’t see any problem with 
it, but the people around me 
sure did, and so did Instagram 
and Twitter. Pictures of groups 
of girls circulated throughout 
Barstool’s 
Instagram 
with 

“copy and paste” being a go-to 
phrase in the comment section, 
ironically 
pointing 
out 
their 

“lack of originality.” Their outfit 
became the symbol of “basic,” a 
term commonly used as another 
way to shame women for almost 
everything they do, when in 
reality, it’s just a popular form of 
individuality. 

When I think of individuality, 

I think of a spectrum. On the 
extreme 
left, 
we 
have 
the 

individuality complexes, where 
every decision we make revolves 
around 
being 
different 
and 

standing out from the people 
around us. On the extreme right, 
we have the opposite, where we 
deny ourselves from any ounce of 
individuality to simply fit in with 
the crowd. In my experience, we 
all have to dabble on both sides 
of the spectrum before actually 
finding ourselves in the middle.

For most of middle school, I 

planted myself on the left side 
of the spectrum. Walking into 

school every day with dark blue 
basketball shorts and a dry-fit 
T-shirt made me feel like I was 
different, playing into the “not 
like other girls” trope. This 
trope centers around — and 
against — society’s description of 
“basic” women as unintelligent, 
uninteresting, 
talentless 
and 

superficial in order to portray 
them as inferior to men. It forces 
many women to try to prove 
themselves as worthy and further 
distance themselves from the 
“basic” girl stereotype put upon 
them. Falling into a spiral of 
trying to prove myself, I rejected 
pop music, hated makeup and 
the color pink and fixated on 
sports. There’s nothing actually 
wrong with hating or liking these 
things, but this persona I adapted 
by following the “not like other 
girls” trope felt constricting. I 
lost touch with the real me.

My box of earrings sat in the 

corner of my room untouched. The 
piercings on my ears closed up for 
the first time since I was a baby. 
My collection of nail polish was 
quickly thrown into the trash, all 
because I did not want to fit into 
the “stereotypical girl” who liked 
pink and jewelry and dresses. 
But the clothes I wore to break 
away from the stereotypes did 
not represent me. I simply played 
into them to stand out. I was not 
the tomboy that I tried to present 
myself as, and I felt trapped and 
constricted playing into this “not 
like other girls” cliché. By the 
time eighth grade rolled around, 
I got tired and felt unhappy 
with having to avoid the “girly” 
things I secretly liked for so long. 

During this time, I started letting 
new people into my life that 
drastically changed my lifestyle; 
our weekends were filled with 
movie marathons of every “chick 
flick” that we could think of. My 
friends would talk about them 
for hours after we watched, 
highlighting 
everything 
they 

loved and hated about the movies. 
In every movie we watched, they 
picked apart the hidden sexism 
behind the characters and the 
plot — the “not like other girls” 
trope. Before this, I had never 
even acknowledged the trope’s 
existence, yet I unknowingly 
went along with it. I quickly grew 
to be embarrassed for acting 
differently just for the sake of 
being different and playing into 
a misogynistic cliché. To get past 
this phase, I pushed myself to the 
right, but way too far.

Throughout the rest of middle 

school, and even a large portion 
of high school, I stayed on the 
right side of the spectrum. 
“through the late night” by 
Travis Scott would blare through 
my headphones while walking to 
class, as I would adjust my hair 
riddled with heat damage from 
straightening my natural curls. 
Leggings and a plain or floral 
top, sometimes a little cropped. 
White Adidas sneakers instead of 
Air Force Ones only because the 
latter were always sold out. And 
don’t get me wrong, the outfits 
were cute, but other than the 
cushy sneakers, it wasn’t me. I 
dressed like everyone else, used 
the same slang and listened to 
the same music — even though 
I hated what I had become. If 

everyone blended in, why would I 
break the pattern? If I broke the 
pattern, I felt like I would be seen 
as the same person I was, wearing 
those oversized basketball shorts 
just to be perceived as different 
from the rest. But in reality, 
trying to conform made me the 
same person I desperately tried 
to get away from, but this time in 
leggings. 

A repetitive sequence of left 

and rights followed, from strictly 
alternative music and movies, to 
exclusively pop, and then right 
back to indie and arthouse. It 
was 
only 
during 
quarantine 

that I was forced to focus only 
on myself. When schools closed 
and I wasn’t able to see others, 
I was eventually able to stop 
comparing myself to my peers 
and get a remote sense of who I 
am. But while social interactions 
decreased, the use of social 
media quickly replaced it causing 
setbacks. The continuous use 
of social media only pushed me 
further away from discovering 
myself due to the constantly 
changing trends displayed on 
TikTok and Instagram. Platforms 
like Pinterest are often used to 
show different style aesthetics. 
While this can be helpful as 
inspiration 
while 
concocting 

your own style, the pressure 
to conform leads to relying 
too heavily on the application, 
resulting in people recreating 
the exact looks without adding 
any personal touch. Limiting 
my interactions with the app 
and other social media, as well 
as peers, pushed me to find my 
own style, since there was no 
one to compare myself to. It gave 
me a balance between the two 
polarizing sides: conformity and 
explicit individuality. 

Being in the middle of the 

spectrum does not mean you’ve 
found a balance between being 

“unique” and “basic.” It simply 
means that the way you dress and 
act represents you. The middle 
means you stray away from 
trying to fulfill the “not like other 
girls” view, but at the same time 
you are not overcompensating to 
conform. You act the way you do 
because that is who you are and 
the way you express yourself, not 
because of how your peers act 
or don’t act. I, for one, classify 
myself as pretty “basic,” but it 
does not bother me the way it did 
before, because it is me. 

From childhood, we’ve been 

ingrained to believe being like 
a “stereotypical” woman was a 
bad thing through the movies we 
watch and the music we listen 
to. We’re insulted for acting too 
“basic,” or like other girls. But 
at the same time, we’re insulted 
for acting differently. Society 
uses the trope they created for 
us and turns it around to insult 
us. If a girl acts differently, she’s 
labeled as “trying too hard” and 
made fun of for being too quirky 
or weird. Unfortunately, some 
men and women will shame 
you with the very phrase they 
complimented you with minutes 
earlier, commenting “not like 
other girls” as an insult. At 
this point, it seems like there is 
not a single thing a girl can do 
without facing any backlash from 
society. It’s not only insulting 
but also hypocritical since men 
are not held to the same exact 
standard. In many instances, 
men “lack originality” in the 
same way women do. They post 
the same fishing pictures, listen 
exclusively to the same rap 
artists and wear the same Guess 
shirt that was once the pinnacle 
of male fashion. Yet, “basic” is 
still mostly used toward and 
against girls. 

Where are you on the individuality spectrum?

Celestial Motion 5/24-5/30

 ANDREW NAKAMURA

MiC Columnist

ROSHNI MOHAN

MiC Columnist

Read more at michigandaily.com

Design by Roshni Mohan

