Alt-Girl Uprising

I was in the 7th grade, 13 years old, and it felt like a first date. Not between me and my best friend who had invited me to her house after school but, between me and the music she played while I was there. My heart raced watching her Youtube recommendations on her TV as she scanned the screen for a search bar. I had heard of Evanescence and Green Day but only on TV. It was the music that white kids told their parents “I hate you” to and my hands started to sweat. Black girls, at least none of the ones I knew, listened to music like this. “Devil music” both my grandmas would’ve called it and as I watched my friend search for a song to play, my thoughts raced. “She’s going to play music like that isn’t she? Am I going to like it? Oh my God, if I like it am I going to hell? Yes. If I don’t like this will Celeste still be my friend?” No. I should just play sick and call my mom and--” The questions, answers and escape plan I was thinking of were interrupted by drums, loud ones. Then guitars. Then him. “I don’t care what you think as long as it’s about me, the best of us can find happiness in misery”Patrick Stump sang, indoctrinating me to a new belief system. I was falling in love and it was only our first date. “You’ve never heard of Fall out Boy'' Celeste asked me, giggling at my wide-eyed reaction. The answer was no but all I wanted to do for the rest of the afternoon and beyond was hear Fall Out Boy and music like that over and over again.

When I got home that day I listened to Folie à Deux, the album the song that made me a believer earlier belonged to, in its entirety. Then I watched youtube videos and read articles about the people behind the music. I was invested. I grew up on Usher, Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child; they made fun soulful music that made me move and feel but sometimes they felt too... manufactured? Too perfect. The music I knew was missing something, anger. I didn’t know why I was angry, or when I became angry, but I was pissed. I was a goody goody, a smart girl. I always did what I was told, but at this point in my life, I knew I was changing. Something about being 13 makes you feel like somehow the entire world is against you and I finally had music to give the world the middle finger I didn’t even know I could before. That week, I said something snarky to my mom that made her say to me “I don’t know how those white kids talk to their parents or what they do, but you don’t act like that.” That night, I cried listening to “The (Shipped) Gold Standard.” I cried because I felt powerless, my mom and the world were out to get me and there was nothing I could do. “You can only blame your problems on the world for so long before it all becomes the same old song. As soon as we hit the hospital I know we're gonna leave this town and get new passports and get, get, get, get, get out now” Patrick sang me to sleep as the tears stained my pillow. I didn’t know that my anger was fueled by sadness. I didn’t have the words to articulate before how and why I wanted to leave and not have to deal with the expectations of the world, my race, or my family anymore or the mentorship that taught me how some circumstances, and some of the things we hate so much about our lives, are out of our control. Fall Out Boy had become my friends, my family, my confidants, my diary, my mentors, a mirror for the most vulnerable parts of myself that I didn't even share with my best friends and my favorite band.

I started to seek out more music like theirs. One of my favorite songs for the rest of middle school and entering my first year of highschool would be “Hallelujah'' by Paramore. This song made me feel powerful in the same way that Fall Out Boy’s discography did, only Hallelujah also felt hopeful. This was my victory song. When I got my first kiss, when my volleyball team went to regionals, when my middle school arch nemesis called me a ditz and I did better than her in a math competition, this was the first song I could think of playing. Because sure I was angry and sad and Fall Out Boy made space for me to be all of that without consequence, but in the same way that when you’re 13 you think the world is against you; when you’re 15 you still feel that way but you also start to feel like the world is revolving around you. You want things to go your way and when they do it feels like your birthright. Whenever I felt like a main character of a coming of age film I’d put my pink gummies headphones in and let Haley Williams remind me that “Somehow, everything's gonna fall right into place.”

The one caveat to my alternative rock awakening was Nicki Minaj. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say “Pink Friday” changed my life. I grew up with and had always loved hip hop and rap but when she came around, I felt a new light forming inside me. She was colorful and assertive and good, so good at what she was doing. When I got to high school, it was important for me to define who I was. I knew I was smart, I knew I could do anything I put my mind to but Nicki Minaj reminded me to not take any crap. That it was ok to know your strengths and let everyone else know them too. Where a younger version of me was quieter and sensitive to the opinions of everyone around her, the version of me that listened to Nicki Minaj was who she was unapologetically. She didn't care that "Black girls don't listen to rock music," she didn't let anyone put her in a box and when they did, she proved them wrong over and over. But as I grew into myself, I had to grieve the loss of the parts of me that existed before I was so sure. “Dear Old Nicki,” Nicki Minaj’s letter to her old self gave me the perfect way to lament the younger version of me that I missed so much but knew I needed to leave behind. “Dear Old Livi, please call back” I’d write to myself in my journal begging to be reminded of who I used to be.

Eventually, I found my way back to Fall Out Boy. I was 16 and people I knew were starting to get pregnant and have babies. My best friend revealed to me that she was depressed and would take a lot of pills to ease the pain. I had experienced my first heartbreak and my first panic attack. Life was getting more serious than it had ever been and “Hum Hallelujah” , one of the songs I loved since I first discovered FOB and had only then started to understand, was heavily rotated. “I love you in the same way there's chapel in a hospital one foot in your bedroom and one foot out the door sometimes we take chances, sometimes we take pills” made me think of all the decisions we made with our hands tied, even then, when we were so young. It made me think of all the ways we were learning to cope. Sure we had problems before, but none this serious. None this adult. We didn't know completely how to handle them and with every "hum hallelujah just off the key of reason" I heard, I understood more and more the pain and nuance that goes into making the music that made me. I understood that things weren't black and white, angry or sad, good or bad anymore. I realized that even though my idols could "write it better than [I] ever felt it" that they didn't make their music just for me, but to cope with their own lives. This song made me realize that even when it felt that way, the world didn't revolve around me, that we all had our shit, and that we we were all humming hallelujah off the key of reason to get by.

These songs are even more relevant to me as an adult. Somewhere along the line, you lose the angst and remember that the world isn't out to get you and sometimes you lose a bit of yourself in that process. Over time, it became convenient for me to bend to the will of others and completely disassociate from some of the lessons these songs taught me. I did what I thought I needed to to survive but I woke up one day recently and decided that I don't want to do that anymore. Survival mode can make you numb, and hollow. You become a shell of a person filled with others' expectations. So, as I'm undergoing a return to self at 23, I find myself again singing "I don't care what you think" when someone tries to project their expectations on me, "you can only blame your problems on the world for so long" when I need a reality check or a good cry, and "somehow everything's gonna all right into place" when I win. I've been humming Hallelujah, signing my journal "Dear Old Livi, please call back," and learning to feel again. Learning to be, again.