Mean Girls. A phenomenon that hit the public eye when Lindsay Lohan and her crew exposed the world to what Queen Bees could do. Lying. Manipulating. Calculating. Deceiving. Bitches. We sat in the seats of the movie theater and shuddered at the acts of these conniving divas as they took individuals who were not as “cool” or “popular” and aimed to ruin their lives through a Burn Book. Parents could not believe that this was reality, and although a lot of movie was a little dramatic at times, I think it did a fair job in depicting what it is like to be a girl in this world.

Confessions: I was once a mean girl. In middle school I had the luck of being friends with the most popular girl in school, Jessica. But the only way to stay friends with this pretty pretty princess was to be just as mean, if not meaner than her. A group of five of us would laugh at the expense of others, make others do favors for us and as a reward we would let them sit at the lunch table with us for the day. We voted people out of the lunch table if they were not wearing the right clothes for the day, yes, I know this also transpired in the movie “Mean Girls” but we did this every single day. Before school we would call one another to pass along the memo of what was acceptable to wear for the day and then we would all dress accordingly.

Where did this get me? Besides a reputation for being a mean girl and a humble servant of Jessica, how was I really benefiting from this? I remember specifically one instance where Jessica became fed up with one of the five. She wrote out a petition, full of nasty and mean comments about the girl, and passed it along for all of us to sign it and the rest of the grade to sign it as well. My heart was in my throat as I signed that paper, it was the equivalent of the Burn Book. When the teacher got a hold of this petition she took each of aside for a one-on-one meeting. In the meeting with me my teacher simply said, “I am disappointed in you, Hannah. I really thought you were a different kind of leader.” Those words stung me, still burn in my mind whenever this memory surfaces.

So I abandoned my mean girl ways. I finally came to my senses and realized that being nice to people was a better way to make friends, real friends, not friends that would dump you the second you did something that they did not like. This being nice to everyone deal has brought me a long way, and I can finally say that I understand the importance of true friendship. Real friends will fill you up and make you a person that you are happy to be.

But I am 21 years old now, a senior in college, and baffled that I still see this “mean girl” syndrome even at this age. A few of my closest friends are being treated horribly by their roommates for no apparent reason. Their roommates are using mediums like Facebook to openly make fun of them and try to humiliate them. As much we all usually want to throw rocks right back in this kind of situation, we realize that this does not get us anywhere. Stooping to the level of the mean girls will get us no where at the end of the day. Let them realize on their own that the mean girls took place in high school, and even then they weren’t exactly cool.

The advice I give to combating these petty princesses? Be a bigger person, the prettier person. Kill them with kindness. It would be so easy to deliver our own insults and try to knock them down a few notches, but at the end of the day we are making ourselves look just as ugly as them, if not uglier. Being mean isn’t cool, it will never be in style, it will never get us anywhere. Yes, people will want to talk about us, but never for the right reasons.

I am a firm firm firm believer in Karma. Karma will play its role in this situation as it usually unfolds in everything else. And a helpful thought to make us happy not to be in the shoes of those mean girls…. Often mean girls are insecure, they have a lot of fake friendships, they are unhappy with themselves and so they must find ways to take this out on someone else… We may be the butt of their jokes today but tomorrow they will have moved onto someone else. Its called a sad and lonely life with a pointless agenda of making other people feel bad. If anything, at the end of the day lets be thankful that we have something more to look forward to everyday.