so, popular culture is not anything that i ever want to be saturated in, but it sort of just seems to happen that way. the unprecedented event of the evening - kanye's shocking display at the vma awards, which i did not even know were on - was bombarding the vast masses of social networking. and me, being the curious controversy lover that i am really wanted to know what happened. so i saw the video, and then directly proceeded to be swept away by all that junk for the past half hour or so. i had several revelations - including how shockingly staged everything seemed, and how pretty lame all these music videos are in the first place.

one in particular got to me, it was taylor swift's video for the song that she won the award for. the one that clearly outraged kanye - which was ridiculous anyway, because he said that beyonce had one of the best videos of all time, and maybe i missed the creative music video train, but all she was doing was dancing for the entire video. anyway, that's not the point i was getting to. so this taylor swift song is essentially your classic she's all that move - with the cute, drama free girl made to look nerdy, and the adorable quarterback with his mean, skanky girlfriend. so there's this theme that the video is centered around - the nerdy girl and popular guy living across from each other, and sometimes writing signs for each other to see. so she has this sign that says, 'i love you', which she never gets to hold up because he always closes his blinds right when she's about to (of course). while i'm watching, the montages of dorky band uniform girl and cheerleading captian girl, scantily clad outfits and tshirts with cardigans, and the tension with this guy, the whole time i'm thinking, poor dorky girls of real life. because this is not how it works. the captain of the football team will never want to date you. and once you get a little bit older, you'll realize you wouldn't have wanted to date him anyway.

i understand, i'm judging through a very stereotyped filter, but that's what the premise of the video is in. i do suppose in some anomalous situations, stuff like this happens - but clearly, not the message taylor swift is sending to our tweens.

so anyhow, i'm watching the video, thinking the whole time, this isn't real life! stop putting these awful false notions into girls' heads! let them find their own identity and boys who will appreicate them for who they are! and then, of course, at the end, she takes off her nerdy glasses and shows up at the dance wearing this amazing dress and looking beautiful - and the popular guy leaves the mean girl and goes for her. i'm thinking, this isn't right! real life never happens like this! these poor girls!

but all of a sudden, she holds up the 'i love you' sign she'd written before but didn't get to show him...and he takes a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and holds it up - and it says the same thing. he loves her too!

cue my heart melting. i was so mad at myself. but ohmygosh it was adorable. and so i'm sick to my stomach with all the false realities but at the same time wanting so badly a cute romancey thing like that to happen to me and thinking, what the heck is wrong with me?

this crazy, backwards culture and its messed up notions of things like love and reality. but i feel like this is perpetually my place, being appalled and disgusted but a product of it at the same time. opposing everything it stands for, but still becoming enthralled and wrangled in at times. and desperately wanting to rid myself of it completely, but having that be virtually impossible, because those smoke and mirrors are so fancy. and those bright lights are so enthralling. and so the muse's song calls be back, caring for things that don't matter, storing in my heart things of this world and not of the one i really belong to. it's a tension i feel so strongly, a tug of war, but i'm not on either side, i'm in the middle, getting sloshed around in the mud, with no side ever fully claiming me. and no one can serve two masters, but that's often what it feels like i do. i'm free in christ but still voluntarily enslave myself in these ways. i cling to these ideals that aren't real life, real love, real sacrifice, real relationships, real community, real moments in time...that do nothing but create falsehoods upon falsehoods. and it's humorous, but really just sorta sad when we get to the heart of it.

especially when as i've been writing, i've been thinking about how i want to watch the michael jackson tribute they did. i'm a silly girl with a silly torn heart. with flesh and a soul. with only one that really matters.