Me, Myself, and Why
The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books were at the peak of their popularity, which likely inspired me to write in my own diary as much as I did. At this time, though, I had just started homeschool after ending the second grade and didn’t have any friends, so I spent most of my time at home watching TV, playing video games, or trying to convince my brother to play outside with me. (It was never successful). On top of that, there weren’t many places that a 7-year-old like me could go to easily when living in rural Connecticut. As one would imagine, I ran out of things to write about quickly. So, I eventually started to doodle drawings in my diary, which were my favorite part of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series anyway. The drawings soon became short comics, some of which would detail the daring adventures of the derivative “Spider-Kid,” whose spectacular alter-ego was none other than yours truly. Little did I know that this comic would become a tool for introspection in a way my diary never could be.
Unsurprisingly, this “Spider-Kid” was a shameless Spider-Man rip-off, but when I look back on the character, I wonder if it was an early moment of a sort of strange self-reflection. During the short run of the comic, I drew myself with long flowing straight light hair beneath a baseball cap with the letter “C” on it, which was a clear contrast to my naturally curly black hair. Whenever I drew in color, I would often opt for whiter skin tones than my actual skin color. That’s right, I whitewashed myself without even realizing it. You may be wondering, “What does this have to do with literacy?” and I understand why. It seems like a strange choice to jump from my copyright infringement-worthy crudely drawn comic book to whitewashing, but I’m bringing this up because in many ways, “Spider-Kid” was my first ever story. Even at such a young age, I thought that the main character shouldn’t look like me, despite being me. I was subconsciously telling myself that I shouldn’t look like me, despite being me.
I eventually stopped writing and drawing for “Spider-Kid” as I became more interested in comic strips in the classic Newspaper formats like Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts. This comic strip was named after myself and centered around my family and me. To give a sense of what the tone of the comic was, a common running joke was that I would wake my older brother up in a rather dramatic and escalating fashion, usually resulting in him looking pessimistically at the reader as I grinned nearby. At this point, I had ditched the long flowing hair but didn’t replace it with my natural hair, as I suspect that I was still unconsciously ashamed of my hair. That design is the one my fictionalized self would keep for as long as I kept drawing comics featuring myself, still stuck trying to see myself as something I wasn’t. However, I wouldn’t stay this way for much longer, all thanks to a simple gesture.
I was standing in front of the mirror of my parents’ bathroom, admiring my new haircut. More specifically, I was admiring my new haircut that had been flattened out by a green baseball cap that I wore frequently. I said that I liked it because I looked more like Peter Parker in the short-lived 90’s Spider-Man Unlimited cartoon series. (I didn’t). My mother told me that I shouldn’t want to look like Peter Parker; I should want to look like myself. At the time, I didn’t really understand. Spider-Man was a hero who went on adventures and helped people. I was just some kid who played video games all day and had an affinity for apples to the point where I genuinely considered starting an orchard so that I could have my own supply. But no matter how I sugar-coated it, the biggest difference between me and Spider-Man was our race. The more I thought about what my mom said to me, the more I started to realize that Spider-Man wasn’t the only hero of mine like this.
In all the shows I watched, in all the books I read, in all the games I played, and even in the stories that I created, none of the heroes resembled me. Spider-Man was white, Mario was white, Christopher Robin was white, so I had to make myself white. When I realized what I had done to myself years later, I began to question who I was exactly. Was I black? Was I white? I knew I couldn’t be both, nor could I be neither. I was told by some that I was black because I had lived “the black experience,” but I was also told that I wasn’t because of my white father. I agonized over who I was for years, slowly realizing that I was never truly going to be accepted by either white or black people. In the end, my heroes would remain white, and “Spider-Kid” would always be a cutting reminder of who I wished I was and who I wanted to accept me. That’s right, a Spider-Man rip-off comic series with myself as the main character threw me into a racial identity crisis during middle school. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little funny, albeit tragic. However, this was an important development for me to undergo in terms of a narrative and reality sense.
While “Spider-Kid” may have been a shameless rip-off featuring a whitewashed protagonist, it also told me a lot about myself when I was younger. While I don’t have any remaining copies of the comic, I do remember writing and drawing it. Through that comic, I inadvertently wrote about my racial insecurity, demonstrated the danger of valuing white skin in our popular media over other races, and was forced to confront these truths. These days, there’s a lot more awareness surrounding these issues, and Into the Spiderverse’s Miles Morales (who hadn’t debuted in the comics or on the big screen when I was younger) scratches that itch of a Spider-Man that looks like me. I still write to this day, as I consider it a great tool for introspection. However, I sometimes find myself wondering how many other kids like me have created characters like Spider-Kid due to a sense of shame. I wonder how many of them are still trapped by their pseudo-reflection that they desire to be shown within these characters. I hope that my own stories will help quell that desire, but in truth I know that I can’t choose for them. What I do know is that writing saved me from a much darker and frightening path which I truly fear.
So, thanks Spider-Kid. You were the worst thing I ever wrote, from a societal standpoint and from a writing one, but you taught me a lot about myself. It’s only uphill from here.
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