if he's so weird, why's he wearing nikes? during a talk a few weeks ago, victor and i pondered the idea of mainstream versus non-mainstream. i contended that he was more mainstream than most people i knew. he contended that I was more mainstream than he. i objected on the grounds of never seeing myself as mainstream. and not wanting to be mainstream. as if want had anything to do with it.



when the term "mainstream" is used, images of oscar nominated movies and grammys come flooding to my head. hi top forty radio. hello titanic, the top grossing movie of all time. mainstream to me was associated with a large number of things that i detest. mainstream modes of thought, mainstream tastes, mainstream acceptance. to me, mainstream was the battle of the masses versus the cockroaches of the underground.



mainstream asian-american also meant to me a certain thing. doctors, engineers, good grades, filial piety, status based on the accumulation of wealth, saving "face", conservative values....etc. but that could be too asian-american specific to be considered "mainstream." though there is definitely, in my eyes, a mainstream type of asian-american and a non-mainstream version. but it's too tangential to go into here.



but it was pointed out to me that mainstream to him meant "feeling in touch with the majority of people around you." after removing the idea of interests from my definition, i agreed with him that i was more mainstream by comparison. because after all, i feel or can relate to most of the people i meet or are around. i have stories that match theirs, feelings that they can corroborate. i was never an outsider to the point where i felt like i didn't belong. i wasn't ever around people who didn't "get me." with this new definition of mainstream in hand, i proceeded to think.



flash forward to last night. as i watched ghost world for the second time, i tried to imagine myself in enid's world. would i be one of the "extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers," or would i be like seymour, the "exact opposite of everything (she) completely hate(s)." the answer is clearly that i'm a pseudo-bohemian loser because i not only am i pseudo but i'm also a loser, plus i relate with 99% of humanity -- or at least 60%.



i've never felt alienated enough to feel like an outsider. different maybe, but never alienated. if anything, i get along with just about everybody, even if it's against my will. and don't you need to feel some sort of alienation to reach the level of rejectionist reality that is ghost world? when people look at me (literally and metaphorically) in a crowd, i'm hardly the enid. aren't all of my tastes and ideas a function of a generality that may not be purely mainstream but so closely aligned that it isn't that far away from it either?



don't i embrace mainstream pop culture and ways of thought just as much as i rail against it? the answers to all these questions is: yes. yes i do. so now i'm coming to terms with my mainstream-ness. i am beau-ti-ful. i want it that way. show me the meaning of being lonely. god must have spent a little more time on me. hit me baby one more time.