One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

Kennedy presents a lineated poem that describes her early childhood experiences at school and at home. The poem describes her attempts to understand how she got to where she is today. She retraces these steps lying on the floor.

Kennedy describes an early Barbie doll called Teen Talk Barbie released by Mattel in the early 1990s (23). The doll had 270 programmed phrases, but each doll could only say four of the phases. Mattel later discontinued the doll because of a phrase about not liking math class (24). Shortly thereafter, Mattel released a new model of the doll that didn’t say anything. Kennedy considers this doll as a metaphor for how she learned “to navigate [her] feminine interests” throughout her childhood (24). She and her sister Kelly Kennedy grew up in the same Virginia household with the same parents but had different interests. Kennedy shared some of Teen Talk Barbie’s opinions about school. Kelly was the cooler sister and Kennedy often imitated her and her friend Monica’s habits, games, and styles. Over the years, she developed her interests based on what other girls were doing, saying, and wearing and on popular television shows and music groups.