My School Dress Codes/Transcript


 * Rebecca Parham: Here's a tip for all of you in middle school, in high school right now: You know that anxious feeling that you get all the time that everyone is watching you and secretly judging and scrutinizing every little thing about you? Like, if you walk by the cool kids and they start laughing and you automatically assume that they're laughing at you because you just couldn't get your hair to behave that morning, yeah. That has a name in psychology: it's called the "imaginary audience". It's subconsciously believing every mistake you make and every imperfection about your appearance is seen and judged by everyone. Well, I've got some consolation for you: you ain't alone. Mostly everyone in your school is dealing with those thoughts, and that anxiety from person to person, is gonna be expressed in a plethora of different ways including negative ways like bullying for your mind, man. The imaginary audience isn't real. The world is not what it seems. Wake up. The matrix has you! So, one of the hard facts about school and about life in general is dress codes. Yeah, it doesn't stop after high school, explainers. People are always telling you what to wear in jobs, at restaurants, passing by on the street.
 * Fashion lady: "I wouldn't be wearing shorts if I had your leg, sweetie."
 * Rebecca Parham: "Oh, yeah?! Well your judgment of others is a manifestation of your crippling disappointment how your life is turning out, sweetie."
 * [Fashion lady cries]
 * Rebecca Parham: [transitioning to a British accent] When I was bottom middle schooler, I went to a private preparatory school that made us wear uniforms. [transitioning back] I don't know why I said that in a British accent. They cared very much what color your socks were, and if your skirt was below the knees one inch too high, and that would be anarchy, I tell you. There's something that I remember the girls at that school complained a lot about is that their skirts were just too long.
 * Students: "They're so long, I can't think straight. Free the knee!"
 * Rebecca Parham: Look, I'm all for personal expression, but that school didn't let us wear leggings in the winter under our skirts, unless it was below freezing. So if you want even less protection from the elements, then go right ahead. I'll be over here in the thermal tent that I wear around my waist. I'm not gonna say that uniforms are an inherently bad thing: Some people like not having to think about what they wear in the morning, but I am NOT one of those people. I mean, I can't even decide on one outfit to stick my animated self with. Just look at this cartoon wardrobe! Eat your heart out, Minnie Mouse. So you can be sure that I was happy to be rid of that school uniform. When I started public high school, I didn't have many non uniform outfits, so my mom and I went out and bought me a brand-new wardrobe for school, and for my freshman year, there wasn't anything too special about this school's dress code, just the usual affair, the stuff you'd expect: no miniskirts or midriffs, no pants so long that you trip over them, no multicolored hair (*unnatural hair color) that looks like you took a highlighter to your head. It all felt very reasonable, especially having just left a school that gave you detention if your shoelaces weren't the same color as your shoe. But the next year, geez. I don't even know what happened. Someone at that school must have royally screwed up, because suddenly, the staff decided that they needed to ban all clothing with pictures and words on it. Got a cute picture of a turtle on your shirt? BANNED! Your pants got the name of the designer on it? BANNED! Got a sweater with musical instruments on it? BAND! And it's against the dress code too. This was a huge deal at my school: every kid was outraged. I don't know if it's the same nowadays, but back in my high school, graphic tees were the majority of everyone's wardrobe. Heck, I had just bought a whole new wardrobe the previous year and now you're telling me I gotta go out and buy another one entirely?! What the hell, school?! The only exceptions to the rule were school shirts like from clubs and sports teams, college shirts or patterns. So, basically, if you had one graphic on the front of your shirt, that's a big old no-no. But if the graphic was all over, that's perfectly fine. Mmm, yes, makes sense. Good call, staff. All this meant was I wore a lot of black theater club shirts, to the point where people were mistaking me for being goth. But there was one shirt I had that was my personal rebellion against the tyranny on a trip to Disney World. I'd found a grumpy shirt that legitimately looked like a college debate team shirt "Grumpy State Debate Team; we're right you're wrong; Debate over." My, my Disney merchandise designers, aren't you a talented bunch? Thanks for aiding the rebellion. That shirt looks so much like a real college shirt that I wore to school dozens of times, and not once did a teacher or staff member decide to look a little bit closer at it. "I'm so bad". That wasn't the only time that I bent the dress-code rules. When it came to backpacks, we had to have mesh or clear plastic, so the adults could see what we were carrying. "Gotta make sure no one's bringing any questionable items into school, like Gameboys". But for some reason, girls were still allowed to carry purses, because I could never fit my gameboy in here, so what ended up happening is a lot of girls tried to work around the system with messenger bags. If they got caught, they could argue that it was a big purse. Sometimes, they got away with it, and sometimes, they didn't. I was one of the messenger bag rule benders. I had followed the backpack rule for two years, but by junior year, my clear, plastic backpack had broken. Those things suck, by the way, and I had found a denim messenger bag that I really, really liked, and one to show off at school, so sue me. Now here is where having the reputation of "the good kid" comes in handy: Because the vice-principal herself would stand at the busiest hallway between periods and nab any kid in violation of the dress code, and every day I would walk past her in that hallway with my messenger bag completely in view and she would turn a blind eye:
 * Vice-principal: "Hey! that shirt is prohibited! Go to the office!" "You! take out that nose ring! You know they're not allowed!" "Oh, hello, Rebecca, you have a good day, sweetheart." "Hey, I see that logo on your pants, mister!"
 * Rebecca Parham: And pays to be the good kid, I say, is I just finished listing off times I broke the rules. College is better, college is pretty chill. I don't even know what the dress code was at my animation school. We all just wore hoodies, because the computer labs were freezing. Well we did have these little things called "full faculty critiques", where you presented your progress to a roomful of ex Pixar, DreamWorks, and Disney artists. So yeah, you were gently encouraged to clean up for those. Maybe wear the good sweatpants. These days, I am lucky, because I could wear whatever I want for this job. I could be wearing something outrageous and embarrassing right this second, and you would never know. Score one for the animators. Take that in, vloggers! You and your daily uploads.. Now one last thing from editor Becca here: sorry if it sounds like I have a cold, it's because I do. If you remember way back in 2018, I said this: "I want to be a ghost story!", and a lot of you seem to share that sentiment, so the CreatorInk guys and I made it a t-shirt, and hey! We made it glow-in-the-dark, for good measure. Link to the stories in the description, this is another one of those limited run items, so get it while it's hot. Anyways, explainers. Thank you so much for tuning in, but now, I gotta tune out and go to bed. Bye!