How Great/Terrible Was Your High School Experience?

Watching and reading a lot of media about teens, I almost take for granted that everyone's high school experience was traumatic and sad. That's certainly the favored representation: embarrassment in front of peers, apathetic or authoritarian teachers, mean girl cliques, stilted romances. There are several ways to explain this. First, everyone's high school experience was awful, in its own way (remember the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy can read everyone's thoughts?). Second, it's just more dramatic that way, i.e. happy stories are boring (Freaks and Geeks mocks happy high school stories in its opening shot, craning away from a budding jock/cheerleader romance on top of the bleachers to the social rejects down below). Third, insofar as good art grows out of suffering, the artists who make teen narratives give accounts of high school based on their own unhappiness during adolescence. Though they indeed frequently produce "good art," it perhaps biases our view of high school, maybe even making us remember it as worse than it actually was (worse relative to the rest of our lives, of course). And if high school dramas show the experience as miserable for a few alienated outsiders, does that mean that it really was great for most people?

I ask because I'm currently watching two teen TV series which were cancelled due to low ratings before they even finished their first season--Freaks and Geeks and My So Called Life--and I wonder if the adolescent misery factor had anything to do with their lack of success. Of course, TV shows fail to gain an audience for tons of different reasons, so I don't want to read too much into this. But compare these shows to a few recent teen series that have done well in the ratings: The O.C. (last season notwithstanding) and MTV's Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. Both have drama and conflict, certainly, but both also celebrate the adolescent years and show their kids having a grand old time. Maybe the wider television audience remembers their high school favorably, and it's only the artists (and critics) that were perpetually unhappy.

And, frankly, all this teen angst is wearing on me. I find Freaks and Geeks amazing and totally watchable, but only because it tempers its characters' constant mortifying embarrassment with extremely funny moments. Its tone is not melodramatic but sardonic, like a lot of the best stories of adolescence, going back to Dickens. In contrast, My So Called Life, while compelling "quality television," sure takes itself seriously. I was enthralled with the first few episodes, finding them prescient, intelligent, and sensitive. After watching several in a row, however, I felt myself drawing away from the characters, wishing they would just get over themselves.

Thinking back to my own high school experience, it was a mix of joy and anguish. I wasn't popular, I was painfully shy, and I hated being patronized by the institution. But I also met friends that I still have to this day with which I had all kinds of fun, and I began all manner of intellectual pursuits under the tutelage of some very devoted teachers. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't constant suffering, either.

So, how was high school for you?