I refuse to be a side character

I just graduated college in the middle of a pandemic. I don’t think anyone really knows what that means yet, besides the fact that the economy is down and the job market looks something like it did in 2008. At this moment, I have no job plans, no travel plans, and no idea how to write an effective LinkedIn post that might go viral in an effort to attract recruiters’ attention.

So naturally, I’ve spent most of my days asking myself a bunch of existential questions and watching a ton of Netflix. We’ll talk more about the dreadful questions later, and before you roll your eyes at that last part, the mind-melting shows have actually helped me figure out who I want to be. (I realize that sentence is as cringeworthy as the last).

I’ve noticed that many shows include a quintessential character who peaked in high school or college. In the 2018 dark comedy, “Bonding,” that character is Chelsea. Chelsea is a very drunk acquaintance of the main characters, Tiff, a grad student who moonlights as a dominatrix, and Pete, her assistant and gay best friend from high school. Chelsea was an upperclassmen at their high school. Some six or seven years later, they’re all at the same bar and Chelsea, who is at least 25, flags them down. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m talking to underclassmen,” she says. “Doesn’t matter anymore though, ‘cause we’re in the” — air quotes — “‘real world.’” 

Chelsea takes advantage of her own drunken sloppiness and pretends she doesn’t know her own address, and Tiff and Pete take her home with them. After throwing up in Tiff’s toilet, Chelsea admits that she actually did know her address, and just wanted for once to break from her sad routine of sitting at the bar and waiting for someone, anyone, to start a conversation with her. 

A very “I peaked in high school and now my life sucks” moment. Sad, I know.

I do not want to be like Chelsea, who isn’t even a side character. She appears once in the show and is never mentioned again.

In all my confused and unemployed post-grad glory, I want to be a main character, like Tiff, who is a smart grad student by day, and a bad ass dominatrix by night. Well, that’s not exactly the path I want to take, but she definitely didn’t peak in high school, and despite her own existential crises, she’s a hustler who surely has a bright future ahead of her (and the show has been renewed for a second season, so there’s that).

Perhaps I’ve been influenced by TikTok as well. This May, teens participated in yet another TikTok trend that makes me feel older than I really am: main character check. “Put a finger down if you have some kind of trauma,” TikTok user Kate Crosby ordered in her viral one-minute video. “Put a finger down if you have a small onset friend group. Put a finger down if you’ve had a best friend of two or more years.” She continues to list main character qualities. If you put seven or more fingers down by the end of the video, she explains, you’re a main character. Thousands of TikTok teens participated and nodded with pride for every finger they put down.

https://www.tiktok.com/@kathrynmcrosby/video/6826768864760696069?u_code=d303el6fl9dk79&preview_pb=0&language=en&_d=d303hdde6ckc57&share_item_id=6826768864760696069&timestamp=1590702902&utm_campaign=client_share&app=musically&utm_medium=ios&user_id=6618367741459070982&tt_from=sms&utm_source=sms&source=h5_m

Everyone wants to be the main character. Being the main character means you’re interesting and different. You’re not too popular or too lame, you’re a happy medium. You have a close friend group who’d do anything for you, and you’d do anything for them too.

Of course, sometimes the main character is the most unlikable one in the series, like Sabrina Spellman in “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” or Piper Chapman in the latter seasons of “Orange is the New Black,” or Ted Mosby at the end of “How I Met Your Mother.” That’s not what we’re going for here.

I guess my version of being a main character is inhibiting qualities that make me unique, likable, interesting, and somewhat in control of my future. Maybe like Andrea Sachs, Anne Hathaway’s character in the film “The Devil Wears Prada.” She went from burnt out assistant, to work-obsessed freak who loses her (*ahem* unsupportive) boyfriend after prioritizing her job, to independent woman who eventually realizes her self-worth and finally takes control of her own life. I mean, the character development is fantastic. How do I glow up like that?

But now that my life-long identity as a student has come to an end, I feel that most things are out of my control. (Now that I think of it, that’s a very main character thing of me to say. The good news is that we are on the right track here, folks). Here come the existential questions: Who even am I? What do I do now? Where do I go from here? What is my purpose? Do I even want my career to correspond with my major? What do I want to do with my life? Are my skills transferrable to different industries? Am I a Chelsea?

The list goes on, but I’m too exhausted to continue. Pondering these questions actually makes me feel worse, like I’m losing my grip on whatever piece of reality I have left.

So, to end this on a lighter note, I’ll choose to ignore the terrifying questions and continue to watch Netflix instead.