Being women, we all know the feeling of that stage between being a child and a teenager. It’s awkward, our bodies are changing, our hormones are out of whack, and to top it off, we grow boobs. I was the most awkward kid growing up. I was never into girly clothes, I never wore makeup, I never figured out how to tame my hair until about 11th grade, and I wore oversized sweatshirts every single day to hide behind.  I was bullied; I thought I was ugly. Now that I’m 20-years-old, I’m increasingly growing more comfortable in my own skin, I know how to use a flat iron, I have pretty exceptional makeup-applying  skills, and I can tell my teenage self that it won’t always feel that way.

This is something that a lot of teenage girls need to hear.

http://youtu.be/8D9mqqkgH-0

I try not to think about those dark days of being a teen, but my attention was brought to a video of this girl on YouTube asking people if they think she is ugly or pretty. Then I found several more girls around the same age, all seeking the same validation. Not only that, but they are getting millions of views and thousands of responses. I had the video open for no more than a minute and at least 50 more comments were posted ranging from telling the girl that she was beautiful to calling her stupid and ugly, even some comments calling her a slut and a whore. There was also a rather disturbing response from a 43-year-old man saying “Ur so hott,” so not only is he illiterate, he probably has jail to look forward to in the future.

A part of me wishes I could just brush it off and think nothing more than ‘these stupid, naïve young girls,’ but I can’t. We were all like that in one way or another. Being that young, you feel like high school and the life you have is all there will ever be. Nobody ever thinks of what happens after, and that’s what these girls need to know. So when they feel ugly, or when the stupid boy who will amount to nothing calls them fat, they won’t take it to heart and know they are just words and one day everything won’t feel as bad.