character cliches: popular mean girl

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everyone's favorite antagonist, the mean girl! you know her, she's:

-blonde
-probably tall
-has two 'minions'
-rich
-ridiculously pretty
-gigantic tiddies
-extremely possessive of bad boy male protagonist
-and a major bitch

as always, she is extremely mean to the main character (and of course everyone else), under the assumption that mc clearly wants to get in bad boy's pants (who neither of them are dating by the way), she's probably a hoe, and a manipulative person. but of course, along with all of this she is insanely popular.

this cliche is annoying because,

1. not all mean girls are blonde. they can be brunette, or redhead (which don't exist in wattpad btw), or even have colorful hair!

2. not all popular girls are mean. keep in mind, if someone is popular, they're probably popular for a reason. they're well liked by the general public, which makes you think, people probably wouldn't like someone who's a bitch 24/7, right?

3. not all blondes (or even most blondes for that matter) are dumb, mean, or promiscuous. i'm not entirely sure where this idea came from, but again, hollywood took it and ran with it. it's simply not realistic and it is completely overused.

here's an example of this cliche in a high school story setting:

I opened the bathroom stall, still sniffling as i wipes the tears off my face. I hate high school, I think to myself. I hate being bullied.

As I make my way over to the bathroom mirrors to assess the state of my mascara and do some serious damage control, the bathroom door swings open, and of course just my luck in walks Ms. Popular.

My body freezes up immediately, eyes shooting forward to instead look at my reflection in the mirror. I know that she shouldn't be here, she must be skipping class again.

I pitifully lower my head to wash the mascara and smeared makeup off of my face, hoping that she'll just ignore me for once. But of course, she sidles up to me, flipping her blonde hair and taking out her makeup bag as she retouches in the mirror. Her minions wait by the door and I can feel their eyes on me.

I nervously glance out the side of my eye at her as I reach for a paper towel to dry off my face. She notices of course, and snaps "What are you looking at?"

"I-nothing, I-I just-" I stutter, finding myself unable to speak correctly in her presence. Her minions snicker near the door.

Ms. Popular turns her head towards me and studies me before making a face. "Oh, you poor thing. Want to borrow some of my makeup?" She holds her bag out to me.

"Y-yes please I-" I make a move to grab it but she snatches it out of reach before i can.

"Too bad!" she laughs, and her minions snicker again. She turns back the mirror, powdering her face. "As if I would let a peasant like you borrow my makeup. My designer brands drop hundreds of dollars in value by just being near you." She makes a face of disgust at me before turning to her minions by the door. "Laugh," she commands, and they immediately burst out into a fit of overly fake giggles.

I feel tears well in my eyes once again i cover my face, running out of the bathroom. I hate high school.

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how many cliches did you spot? these can be fixed instantly, by making simple changes. for one, don't make the popular girl blonde. and maybe, have her be nice to her friends? popular girls have real friendships too. and make her a nicer character. As i said before, if she's a terrible person then she probably won't be well liked by everyone. It's all about being logical and realistic.

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