Since I was little, I’ve lived a very sheltered life. I live in a very cookie cutter style suburban neighborhood in the U.S. Basically, most people here are white, straight, extremely religious, and conservative. My family has always been sorta different and my parents consider us to be more liberal and to allow certain things other households won’t allow. But even so, I was pressured to be morally and mentally perfect. I was never allowed on certain internet sites(things like Club Penguin or Neopets) and couldn’t play a lot of video games or listen to certain music. Even now as I go through high school, I am not allowed to cuss. Education wise, I was supposed to get 100s on everything and just get straight As all the time. Everything in my life was supposed to be just so, even if my parents constantly insisted we lived differently.
I had never seen South Park before a few months ago. A friend linked me to a Book of Mormon video on Youtube and I began listening to the soundtrack via the Facebook page. I was really into the musical and I now own both the soundtrack and the book. It was probably looking at the book for the musical that I started to be interested in South Park. The writing and descriptions… they were just so funny and clever and interesting and I don’t know, different! As an aspiring writer myself, I really enjoyed the writing and kinda looked up to it because I am not that good at writing comedy.
Lately, I’ve suffered with depression mostly due to my own perfectionism. I lack motivation, interest in life, and nothing seems right sometimes. It was when I first started medication and therapy that I saw South Park for the first time. I was at a friend’s house and her little brother was watching an episode focusing on Butters as Professor Chaos. A while ago a friend of mine had mentioned Butters so I paid attention.
….And was kinda surprised and yet equally not surprised to find out how cute this show is. It’s a very special and meaningful show, even though on the surface it can appear to some people as a few fourth graders cussing every second. It’s not that. After seeing that one episode, I was hooked. I wanted to see more of Butters and just kinda everything to do with this show. I watched episodes through the website and then bought the movie DVD. I’ve now seen the movie, up to Season 4, all of the Coon Mysterion arc thing, all of Season 15, and a few random episodes here and there. And I love all of it.
When I’m sad, I watch South Park. Sometimes the episodes can be sad too, but there’s something to South Park. It makes fun of a lot of things and yet as hurtful as it may seem, it’s not that way at all. To me, South Park is a reminder that no one is perfect and no one can ever be. There’s a lot of good in all of us, and a lot of bad. We all make mistakes, but at the end of the day you can always say “You know, I learned something today.” There’s reasons to be sad, and South Park always reminds of us that. But it also always reminds us that we can always stop taking ourselves so seriously and just… laugh. South Park never fails to make me laugh. It’s so clever and heartwarming. So, thank you, Matt and Trey, and everyone who contributes to South Park. This really is an amazing show and it’s helped me so much by always giving me a reason to cheer up and laugh. There really are friendly faces everywhere because of this show.
