That's Girl's Stuff!

One man's tale of redemption from the world of Popples, Jem and other glittery nonsense.

Before starting kindergarten there is that period of time where the recently born are lumped into broad the category of "Children". Not so much Boys and Girls, but simply children. During this time boys can still have stuffed animals, girls can roughhouse and none of their peers know the difference.

But after entering the classroom, the line is drawn: Boys like this, Girls like that and there is no crossing over without risking the punishment of endless taunts and life haunting nicknames like "Danny The Doll Lover" or "Tomboy Tina".

For most kids the decision to honor these time honored traditions is made very quickly, but for some of us the line is blurry and that can lead to only one thing...

"PAIN!".

Here is one man's confession from the 80's to the 90's.

My first tip-off for the change that was to come happened in pre-school during what I like to call "The Great Popple Conspiracy". Yes, I had a Popple. A Purple Popple no less, but I was only 5 and well within my rights to do so. Small, purple, comforting.

Our pre-school allowed us to bring one toy with us daily, but we had to stow it away in a cubby until the end of the day.

I brought my Popple and tucked him or her (it didn't matter then) snugly away in cubby land. But when 2 O'clock rolled around I sensed something was amiss, call it a Popple-sense.

I looked over to see a girl named Jennoah (a conspicuous name to be sure) holding "my" Purple Popple. THIEVERY!

Quickly I ran to save my little buddy from her villainous grasp, with shouts of "My Popple!" leading the charge.
After pleading my case to the criminal's mother, my Mom showed up, "Now they're in for it", I thought.
But it only got more confusing from there as from out of my cubby came another Purple Popple! How could this be?

Of course I was not convinced that the case was solved until my Mom showed my meaningless initials Sharpied onto the tattered tag of my Popple.

For a brief moment I pondered the fact that the only other person in my tiny world with a Purple Popple had long hair and wore dresses.

But we both had high voices, so I didn't really see any need for concern.

The Popple disappeared as soon as I entered kindergarten, for no toys were allowed in there. But Saturday mornings still allowed me the freedom to pick my cartoon poison.

Although I enjoyed the action packed suggestions of Thundercats, Centurions and M.A.S.K. from "My Boyz" from school, a Siryn's song caught my ear and pulled me into her glittery, pink world...her name, was JEM.

Looking back now I can make up excuses like "Jem was HOT!" or "It was all about the music, man" or "Her bright colors blinded my judgement", but I know the truth, Jem was magic!

She reminded me of another singing sorceress, Olivia Newton-John from Xanadu (my other secret shame).

If you think about it though, the show had some sci-fi action elements, I mean, Jem and the Holograms transformed like He-Man (or She-ra: Princess of Power, yet another of my infractions against the Man Laws).

She had her computer-based, A.I. buddy, Synergy and they drove cars pretty fast some times.

Of course, I did not share this with my friends, I should say, I COULD not share this with my friends. "Truly outrageous" or not, they just wouldn't understand.

Moving into the 90's I thought I had learned my lesson, but again I found myself in a quandary. By this point it was obvious that I "Liked Girls", but I thought that to get them to like you a common interest had to be shared. Well what was more popular than the New Kids on the Block?

Yes, the NKOTB, what better way to strike up a conversation with a pretty girl, "Hey, who's your favorite New Kid?" This tactic worked well, in fact, incredibly well. I was invited over to a girl's house where we sang and danced along to "Step By Step" and "Hangin' Tough", but then I found out I was in too deep.

Soon I was buying NKOTB albums, then I was buying Teen Beat, then I was buying the dolls!
Something was terribly wrong, I even coaxed a buddy into filming lip-synched music videos with us as the "2-Kids", instead of the New Kids (please forgive me, Chris!).

I knew the insanity had to end when I eventually picked a favorite New Kid, JOHN-because he was the quiet one!

I quit NKOTB cold turkey, although occasionally found myself nursing the addiction in private. Unfortunately I soon traded one drug for another...

Beverly Hills 90210 was my vehicle now as I attempted to enter the pretty girl attention fast lane.

But just as before the cycle repeated: Dolls, now Tiger Beat, Brendaaaaaaaaa!

I almost got out when suddenly they added my former celebrity crush Tiffani Amber-Thiessen to the cast!
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Those freakin' junkie dealers at Fox! Curse them!

Luckily I soon saw the light and was saved by the glory of Mortal Kombat, Billy Madison and The Jerky Boys, how's that for a healthy dose of testosterone?

Though the lines of manly interests have been clearly defined in my mind for some time now, I can't say I'm completely cured.

Occasionally I still hum the Jem theme song or trade it up for Barbie and The Rockers.

All traces of 90210 and Popples have left the building, but one vice continues to taunt me and is rearing its ugly head again after all these years...

What can't the dead, stay dead?

Comments

OMG!!!! i absolutely love this! i know i'm a little over 4 years late reading this- but i freaking LOVE it!

I saw something strange coming out of the sky, it had one long horn & one big eye. It looked like a purple popple eater to me. It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple popple eater, a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple popple eater, what a sight to see!

...sorry, just had to get that out of my system. :p

My sister liked Popples and Jem when she was little. I stopped watching Popples on our video tape when I was in middle school because my family told me that show was for little kids.

Wow, this is a really great article. Nice job!

Great Article...I liked the Sports Popples (The Football, Basketball, Soccer Ball)I remember the 90210 and NKOTB craze....You know that a New 90210 is starting this year lol

haha someone mentioned Cabbage Patch Kids... guilty of that too... i had quite the stuffed animal collection... to this day i wont let my mom get rid of them...

Yep I was the total opposite, I was the biggest tomboy ever. i wouldn't even wear girl clothes until like 7th grade. I used to play with fake guns and such at my neighbors house. but overall I really liked the article

I was (still am) the opposite to you, I always loved the boys stuff, I had Barbies and My Little Ponies but I was also used to play Transformers and M.A.S.K. with my brother too, or sometimes we'd do crossovers with My Little Ponies and Transformers and such. I also used to prefer Action Man as Barbie's boyfriend because I never liked Ken alot. I watched mostly boys shows because I thaught they had so much more substance than girls shows. Where I'm from there was never as much of a stigma for Tomboys as much as boys who liked girls stuff, I always thaught that was pretty weird.

Excellent article.

way to sack up and admit your guilty pleasures. Thanks for the laughs. In your defense Jem WAS hot and the theme music rocked, I watched enough to know. I also played with girl toys but it usually involved flames and/or explosives as I destroyed random articles left at the playground with a well taped M-80. This is a simple lesson on the value of cooties: if your dad would have told you "Whoa son, you can't go down the pink toy isle without running and holding your breath" or your pals would've pointed out that you will get cooties and die for playing with a my little pony, your childhood teasing would have been considerably less. Cooties keep children who don't (and shouldn't) understand sexuality from discovering the same until much older. familiarity with the opposite sex leads to "playing doctor" best reserved until dating age at least.

I think you made a great point

I'm just discovering Punky Brewster now, and I'm about 20. It's a guilty pleasure to love all of the old sitcoms.

Heh, I was a bit of a Sailor Moon junky for a while. And, I found some of the Jem shows to be well written. Hang Tough, pal. Thanks for the fun read.

Heheheh, nice article. Here's a confession of my own...
Though I never got into the girl shows much, save Sailor Moon during the late 90's, there was one giant pink beacon I was always drawn towards; the girls' toy aisle. I wouldn't go so far as to say I wanted a Barbie, but girl toys came with a TON of more stuff than boy action figures. I mean, sure, every GI Joe came with about eight weapons, but the way I played, there was some downtime between battles! Damned if I didn't want that camper set, so my X-Men could take a vacation, and in so doing find more trouble. Bah!! Down with societal gender typing!

(I did wind up having a handful of original Littlest Pet Shop stuff. What can I say, I've always loved cats...)

Interesting article.

I'm so glad to see that I wasn't the only guy who participated in "girly" stuff as a kid. I remember being into a lot of the stuff my older sisters were into, and since they let me tag along it wasn't seen as a problem. I liked Jem, I played Barbies with my sis, hell, I was even a New Kids fan (Joey was my favorite). But I turned out to be a regular manly man after all, so no harm done. I guess I was lucky. I never had anyone throw my doing "girly" stuff back in my face, and I wound up outgrowing it naturally. I could stand as an example that parents don't have to sound the alarm and line up the psychiatrist if they catch little Johnny playing with Barbie. It won't last, and no one will die. Too bad everyone doesn't think like that. Thanks for writing this article.

dude no

As long as we're mentioning stuff like this- I had a cabbage patch kid. Believe it or not, though, a lot of guys in my first grade class either had one or wanted one.

And I don't think She-Ra or 90210 are huge infractions. Every teenager was watching 90210 back then, guy or girl, and She-Ra has two things going for it: 1) it was a He-Man spinoff, and 2) the villains, the Evil Horde, were pretty badass (Hordak was Skeletor's mentor) and released as part of the Masters of the Universe toy line, not with the She-Ra figures.

Major kudos, I'm glad to see that you can admit that society imposed gender rules are crap! I'm not afraid to admit that when She-Ra and He-Man came out on DVD a year or two ago, I only had enough money to buy one set, and without even thinking, I picked She-Ra. Girl stuff from the 80's totally rules! What with every toy suddenly trying to be concious of the feminist movement, the girls of the 80's had a ton of cool toys, some of the She-Ra figures were like 10,000 times cooler than the He-Man ones, JEM was freaking awesome. Hell, even the girlie tv shows were cool. Punky Brewster is one of my all time favorite shows!

Whoa, this reminded me of my early years in kindergarten and first grade. Yeah, there was a line. Boys were boys and liked all sorts of things a guy liked to do, and the girls were in a world or their own, away from the boys. There was almost no socializing between the genders, and you could still be friends with a girl (Like me...) but you didn't want to make it look too obvious or else you'd get the taunts from the boys. (I've had it happen) Like what Zomnificient said, I also had girls as close friends because they are just the same =] One of my early childhood friends was also a girl and we'd play in the park behind our small apartment building on hot afternoons. I miss those days...

I used to play Barbies with my twin sister when I was like 5 and I even had a Ken doll. I have no shame.

XD i had (have, its in a bag in the garage) a Popple too! it was blue though... very funny read!

Three words for you WTF !!!

"I know what you mean. I'm not ashamed to admit that when I was little, I enjoyed playing with those Polly Pockets, back when they were small enough to eat, ha. Yes, I am a boy."

Roadgeek, did Mighty Max come too late for you?

Good article. Although I can't remember liking any girls toys, lots of my friends were girls when I was very young. I think it was because I went to a very small daycare, and there were only so many people there in the first place, some of my friends were bound to be girls. I remember Nicole, Alexis, and Leslie. I also remember one time I was playing house with Leslie, and we had a "domestic dispute". I bit her. I sometimes got in fights with girls, but I never felt that girls had cooties or were gross.

This article cracked me up

The popples story is quite funny :-D
What a unique topic! =)

Thumbs way up for you!

asianretrojunk.com

k mabey a few purple ones.

when i was a kid i aplyed wiht ALL TOYS. didnt matter if they were girls or boys. a toy was a toy. music is where i drew the line. i think i finaly stoped playing wiht "girls toys" when i was in grad 2. not becasue of taunts but becasue all my "girls toys" had long ince disapeared. either to barbie going on a suicide mission or betraying the syndicate. i had trolls till i was in grad 9 , and still have stuffies to this day. jsut not purple ones:S

Dude I Have that Same Popple!! as well as Bumblion from wuzzles!! what can we say. The 1980s was unisexed up It didn't matter if you had girls who watched/played GIJoe & Transformers and Boys who Watched/played Popples and Jem,Maxie's world,Beverly Hill teens. (in which would came on before Gumby) yes I've seen these and I'm glad to have had a good time!!

I am a man and im man enough to say that i actually had an NKOTB t shirt and i wore it on the first day of 7th grade and you can take a guess as to what happened....

I had a Popple, watched Jem, and liked other girly things when I was a kid. Boys made fun of me by using the old "You like GIRLS!? GROSSSS!" crap. A lot of my friend were girls, some became romantically linked to me, and one became my wife. Thank you, girly stuff!

I know what you mean. I'm not ashamed to admit that when I was little, I enjoyed playing with those Polly Pockets, back when they were small enough to eat, ha. Yes, I am a boy.

I don't think its fair for things to be "you're a boy so you're not allowed to like this!" and "You're not a allowed to watch that show, boys only!". Certainly I was the opposite of you. Anything pink or frilly was lame (I still ended up with a lot of Barbies though thanks to birthday parties, even though I hated them) and things with fighting or action was super cool.

But despite the "girls are allowed to get away with that stuff" thing people always say, its really not true, as I found out the hard way.... Either way, theres just no forgiveness on either side of the matter.

What I'm trying to say is, you're a real man.

Dude, I was planning to write an article about the exact same thing (only mine would have mention my near-obsession with the "My Little Pony" movie at age five). It takes guts to write an article like this, my hats off to you for it.