The TV show "Popular" has been off the air for 25 years, but it tells a story as old as time, which is that going with the crowd is preferable to standing out from the crowd. The teen com-dram was immaculately cast, acted, and shot to accentuate the glaring gap between the ins and the outs, and the lengths to which the ins worked to keep the outs out and the outs worked to get in.
These shows are set in high school, because we equate that peer pressure with that time in our lives. But, I would argue popularity is far more pernicious in our adult existence, though we dare not admit so. Easy to dismiss our crazy adolescent attempts at fitting in - big hair! ripped jeans! - and harder to fess up to similarly desperate impulses when we are grown-ups.
It takes some courage in our divisive, fake-news, vibes-are-everything climate to be an original. To seek truth, wherever it takes us and whoever it causes us to agree or disagree with. Said another way, in life we will be asked to say and do things that are decidedly countercultural, unpopular, and perhaps cancel-worthy. Will we shrink back or stand up?
And so it is that I love roasts, so much so that I subjected myself to one as a going-away gift after 20 years at my current job. Last night was a lot of fun and a lot of laughs, for which I'm thankful to my roasters and my event planner. You can watch the video if you missed it, I'll link to it as soon as it gets posted.
I hope this is a metaphor for something deeper than getting scorched for an evening. Popularity can be seductive but ultimately it is unfulfilling. We may crave to be in the in-crowd or at least not outcasted. But what we truly crave is meaning. And that search for and defense of meaning will necessarily mean standing alone, weathering ostracization and opposition and ridicule. It is worth it.
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