Why must kids, preteens, and teens be so mean?

I know-what a cheesy video I found.  But I love this song.  Rookiemag posted about it and it reminded me of how badly I tried to fit in during junior high when this movie came out.  I was miserable and kept pretending that everything was okay even though it wasn't.  I tried so hard to convince myself.  I know that some people think that this song it just about a boy.  But lets not just jump to that conclusion immediately.  Something happens before him. Its this dissatisfaction, hating, and self-hate we are dealing with.  It makes me so mad!  We need to speak up and be the voices in conversations that are willing to express who we are and that there is much more value in that than solely our appearance and false versions of ourselves.  I practice this and the conversation always seems to take a turn away from the gossip and disgust of others and ourselves.  If it doesn't work, then that speaks loudly about how rotten those people are anyways.

Moreover I have encountered this at where I work.  I work at the Boys and Girls Club of America(a safe place for minority children to have fun, learn, and grow).  Some of the little girls are already worried about calories in soda!  A few girls excluded one girl because she was "ugly." A boy called two girls "fat" when they were mad at each other and the girls ran away crying.  Why?  Why must we be so mean?  I wish someone would have told me that everything would be okay later.  Granted I ended up with anorexia because I took these types of messages(ignored, excluded, ridiculed) to heart, but things are different now.  I was always waiting and hoping for later.  I often times find myself having children apologize to each other for things like this while I also validate how unfair and not okay it was to those who were ridiculed.

My memories of junior and high school mainly consisted of bullying.  I had a group of friends in 6th-8th grade who turned on me and excluded me.  I went to daycare with them daily and had to deal with these jerks.  I have been reminded of them because I am in the middle of a move and I found a journal entry about these girls who were so mean to me.  We made this big dance for a show that we were in and after practicing for weeks, a few days beforehand I was replaced and gossiped about more than I was excluded.   

 As for high school, I was #2 on my school's "hate list" fb group which I eventually somehow found out about.  It was like a virtual burn book.  The amount of likes was demoralizing.  I found stories and instances with the truth twisted about me.  I already was physically and emotionally alone so often, so this made it clear that no one was my true friend at my high school.  From time to time, I wonder if anybody remembers that hate group.