We all know that teenagers, girls especially, are faddists. We also know that they don’t know much: that’s why we send them to school. Science also tells us that teenagers have under-developed brains, are driven to seek social acceptance, and are physically incapable of thinking things through and understanding consequences.
When our mums used to ask if we’d jump off a cliff if all our friends did, the honest answer was Yes.
So, when a probably apocryphal newspaper beat-up clutches its pearls because, allegedly, a group of girls at an elite school are joining in a silly fad, it’s a case of Who cares? Tell us something new.
But it does also have much deeper relevance.
Students at an elite private school are walking on all fours and cutting holes into their uniforms for tails as they identify as cats or foxes.
A handful of students believe they are animals and have asked to be called ‘furries’ by their peers at Brisbane Girls Grammar School.
Ok, for a start, that’s not what furries do or think. I know a lot of furries and I’ve also read a lot of sociological literature on the fandom. Because that’s what is is: a fandom. Furries no more believe they are animals than Trekkers believe they are members of Starfleet.
Someone who literally thinks they are an animal in a human body is an “Otherkin” — and even furries think Otherkin are loonies.
In fact, if anything, I’d lay money that these girls — if they really exist — are simply aping a subgenre of Japanese popular culture, “catgirls”, or nekomimi. Because it’s “cute” (or kawaii, if you must).
Girls have been caught ‘preening’ themselves, licking the backs of their hands and walking around with their arms hanging towards the ground ‘as if they’re on all fours’.
‘When a girl went to sit at a spare desk, another girl screamed at her and said she was sitting on her tail; there’s a slit in this child’s uniform where the tail apparently is,’ a concerned parent told Courier Mail.
‘Girls who identify as felines preen themselves, licking the back of their hands, and the foxes walk around with their arms leaning towards the ground, as if they’re on all fours; the kids are all talking about it.’
So, they’re getting attention: don’t you think that’s the whole point?
Does anyone seriously think this is anything other than a group of teenage girls forming yet another silly “club”? This sort of nonsense is what children and teenagers do. Especially the ones with particularly active imaginations. My youngest used to pretend to be a monkey. My sister enraged my Mum by cutting up her tartan school dress to make Roller Strollers. A boy at my high school used to pretend to be a robot. At other times, girls wore KISS makeup or played at being Goths. This is who I AM, Mum!
Brisbane psychologist Judith Locke said she was unsurprised by the emergence of the new trend.
She claimed it was only a matter of time before people began to identify as animals after romanticising them in their lives, in film and television.
‘But there’s a real challenge around the acceptance of people’s decisions on how they see themselves these days; it is a fraught area’.
We can all see what she’s trying desperately not to say.
In case the point needed to be made any harder:
Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg said he had only come across one client who identified as an animal in his 25 years of practice.
The client was a young boy who identified as a dog.
Dr Carr-Gregg said once the stressors in his life were removed, the boy resorted back to identifying as a human being.
Daily Mail
OK, hands up who didn’t think of the “trans” fad, reading all this. Not many of you, I see. This is a smart audience.
Because, playing with identity, pretending to be something they’re not, and slavishly following trends is what teens do. Whether it’s Otherkin, catgirls, or trannies.
This alleged incident also shows just how powerful social contagion is, for teenage girls especially. As well as how psychological stressors can result in kids adopting other identities.
But, sure, tell us that a girl pretending to be a boy (girls identifying as “male” have skyrocketed in the last few years) is somehow any different from a girl pretending to be a cat.
