A Love Letter to Childish Things

Zara Boon

"Act your age." 

While it might not be said to me explicitly very often, it's heavily implied. 

Look, I know I'm louder than most, and not just in decibels. I wear overly bright colours and have interests that a lot of teenagers would scoff at for being childish. I’m open about those interests, and love talking about them. I have little to no social anxiety anymore, and I throw compliments like confetti. At the end of each trimester, I give my lecturers tiny 3D-printed ducks as a thank-you for a nice class. 

I know I'm an oddball. I've heard enough shit-talk and received enough backhanded comments to know it's not always welcome. 

I love my bright accessories and jingling whenever I walk, but allow me to digress for a moment and explain why there's more to it than that. I aim to spread love and joy because we need more of both. The way I do it isn’t the only way. 

There is something resistant about loud joy. Misery is easy to impose; happiness can be harder to stamp out. Take it from Spider-Man, or Mabel Pines, or Pinkie Pie, or any other character who’s often brushed off as “silly.” Grin in the face of your enemy and they’ll get so confused you can hit them with a shiny rock and run towards your goal.

But joy doesn’t have to conform to whatever is currently trending.

If you're not in the know—and I wasn't until, like, two days ago—there's a new “bedazzling” trend going around. By the time this is published, it'll probably be over. On the surface, it's super cute! You cover things in little colorful gems from a mass-produced sticker sheet. Easy, fun, and temporary. Perfectly temporary, just like any trend. 

Listen, I hate to yuck someone's yum, but are you really partaking in whimsy if you buy a sheet of gems off TikTok shop for the sole purpose of bedazzling your hand cream? Babe, that's more plastic added to the environment. Where’s the joy in that?  

This is fast-food whimsy—which is to say, it's not really whimsy at all. 

I won't pretend to be high and mighty, or above the allure of shiny consumerist objects. But here's the thing: the objects themselves aren't where the whimsy is located. It's in what you do with them, where they come from, and what they mean to you. 

Take my latest favorite accessory. It's a length of chain with a ton of keychains slapped onto it, looped through my belt loops so you can hear me coming a mile off. But I didn’t buy anything on it solely for the purpose of making it. I already had all of it lying around and tossed it together. Shit, I found some of those keychains on the ground. Some of them are earrings! Most of them are gifts. 

All this is to say: don't try to force whimsy by buying the first piece of brightly colored plastic you see. 

Whimsy comes in many forms, but at its core is finding the bright spark that other people might overlook; digging through the dirt because you think you caught a glimpse of a shiny rock.

Whimsy is about hope. It’s seeing something most people would discard, taking it home, loving it, and proudly displaying it—making it into something better. It’s finding the silver lining, even if everyone else insists it’s cheap aluminium.

I will blare my loud-ass Splatoon music while studying, I will wear a dragon onesie to bed, I will yap to strangers about books, and I will enjoy life, god damn it!

Be whimsical. Be loud.  Be passionate.  Be “cringe,” whatever the fuck that means. We are on a flying rock in the middle of a void, circling a ball of gas that will explode one day. Have a good time, and bring other people into it. 

You want hope? 

Make it yourself.