"She's just so loud."

"Her hair is so frizzy."

"Bossy pants."

"Does she think that outfit is cool?"

These are just a few of the things that I heard growing up and, yes, they were all directed at me. As a kid, I was super loud and friendly. I wanted to talk to everyone and I laughed a lot. (Still true). We didn't have as much money as other families, so I never came to school wearing Abercrombie or Miss Me jeans. Instead, I wore gauchos and crocs until my classmates stopped being subtle about how out of style my clothes were. All I wanted was to be cool, but it just never really happened for me.

I wasn't the only kid that went through this. While it is bullying to be mean to others about their personality or what they wear, it often isn't reported because to these kids, it's either not that big of a deal or they think that adults won't care about bullying on such a small scale. Every day, kids across America are called weird, freaky, nerdy, losers, posers, whackos and a whole slur of new names that kids come up with every day. The funny thing, and the point of this article, is that nowadays, everyone wants to be weird. Everyone wants to have their own personal style or a cool aesthetic. Everyone wants to have that thing that they do that no one else can get away with doing. Being weird is cool. Being different is admired. This goes to show how much our society has changed, thanks in large part to social media.

Despite all of the bad things social media does, one of the good things it does is that it shows us other people and lets us see how they want to be presented to the world. When we get on Instagram, we see beautiful pictures of girls with their friends in their super cute outfits, but we truly connect with a picture when we see them doing something strange. Hug a pole with your two best friends and take a picture of it, it will get tons of likes. Find some random wall downtown and take another picture, even more admirers. Put on your favorite outfit, no matter what it is, and smile a true smile into the nearest camera, the people will love it.

I'm not trying to give you advice on how to get more likes on Instagram, but rather get you to understand that what people really love is when you act like yourself. Our favorite pictures are the ones where people are actually just doing what comes naturally to them. Regardless of whether at any point in your life, these behaviors were once called weird or freaky. The world is progressing. What once was strange is now in style and the only aesthetic that we love is happiness. So go ahead. Be loud, wear your hair up in a messy, frizzy bun and put on your old gauchos because love and happiness is what's really cool.