Middle school is rough. It doesn’t matter who you are, there is almost certainly a chunk of your middle school experience that you wish you could wipe from existence. You’re going through changes, struggling to sort yourself out, and dodging bullies. For some of us, those bullies were the typical ‘steal your lunch money’ type. For others, however, they looked a lot like the girls TikTok users are currently imitating. Those mean lipstick-wearing 14-year-old girls that found a way to taunt you—subtly, of course—for everything from your looks to your grades.
Olivia Giordano, aka @liias._, @an 18-year-old who has more than 160,000 followers on TikTok, is mimicking these girls in some of her most popular videos.
https://twitter.com/dumb_boii/status/1122600757478547456?s=21
https://twitter.com/dumb_boii/status/1122600853809115136?s=21
In one of her videos, she plays a girl asking someone if they are “emo” because they wear all black. Giordano based it off her own personal experiences.
https://twitter.com/findyourmeme/status/1122187472811720704?s=21
“While in middle school, I had a dark style that could be depicted as ’emo’. Because of this, a lot of my classmates would make a comment on it, asking if I was emo,” Giordano told the Daily Dot in an email. “I even had a ‘friend’ pull up my sleeves during class.”
Giordano said many of her other ‘mean girl’ TikTok videos are also inspired by situations she encountered as a teenager.
“I like to make these videos because a lot of people tend to relate, and I remember one person telling me it made them feel better,” she said. “Although while watching it you may feel bad, once you realize it’s just a TikTok, you began to understand that A LOT of people went through tough things while in school.”
Giordano’s videos are simple but so full of accurate middle school insecurity that people can’t stop talking about them. “It’s so damn uncomfortable,” one Twitter user wrote of the videos.
https://twitter.com/French_Pain/status/1122353908981084160
https://twitter.com/lesbianvergil/status/1122251730765385730
The POV tik tok girl who makes the anxiety inducing middle school videos is our next supreme
— Lukas Battle (@lukasbattle) April 29, 2019
i just got a tik tok to get bullied by that one girl all over again as if middle school wasn't enough
— olimar and the olimen (@charjabuggy) April 30, 2019
Giordano isn’t the only one making videos about uncomfortable middle school and high school interactions. Twitter user @uhquaria has made videos on not receiving invites to sleepovers and your friends pairing up for a class project, among other topics. It’s hard not to cringe while watching them.
POV: you’re at a birthday party and you’re the only one not invited to the sleepover after pic.twitter.com/syBgBtn9Z5
— maddie (@uhquaria) April 28, 2019
POV: when your 2 best friends are closer with each other than you and you have to pair up pic.twitter.com/PxTkCymrPt
— maddie (@uhquaria) April 28, 2019
Your worst middle school experiences: now available in short-form videos.
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