I really relate to Jenna and all the other characters in so many ways, but my topic for today is changing friendships in high school. I’m that one girl who has moved everywhere and doesn’t stay in one place for more than 4 years. It’s fun, moving around to different countries and having new experiences, but it’s also heartbreaking. Most teenagers don’t know how difficult it is to leave your friendships in distant places, because it ruins them. I moved from Canada last year to Portland and I’ve kept probably 1/4 of all the friends I had. Sometimes, Facebook and Skype just aren’t enough to maintain the friendship that you previously had.

A more common cause for changing friendships, though, especially when you’re a teenager, is poorly made decisions. One bitchy comment or backstabbing move can ruin a 10-year-long friendship. Any girl who has said she’s never instigated drama before is lying, because it’s just in our nature. Of course, it’s not the right thing to do. Whether it was intentional or not, or a one time thing, girls cause drama, and it changes friendships. I’ll walk down the hallway and see a 12-year-old girl crying because of something that came out of someone’s mouth. Those remarks really don’t mean anything though, because it’s just drama. Girls get mad at the most pointless stuff and love to blow things out of proportion for attention. Sometimes I question why girls my age let themselves get so offended by simple words. You can choose to take offense to the comment that someone says, or you can brush it off. Girls love drama though, and knowing that people are talking about you, or sympathizing for you, can be exciting for anyone. A lot of friendships change because the involved people choose it to be. In Awkward, Lissa and Sadie get into a huge fight because Lissa decides to become friends with Jenna, and their friendship changes in a huge degree. This happens so much in middle school and I can tell it’s going to be the same for high school, too.

I recently stopped being friends with these girls because they were bad influences, and I guess the reason why we stopped being friends were because I had a change of heart. I decided that I didn’t want to be associated with them because I just wasn’t like them. If two people wanted to still be friends, they’d bury the hatchet and let it go. Some people don’t though, and that’s okay. At this age, of 13-18, grudges and disloyalty are the foundation of fights and changing friendships. Jenna and Tamara hated each other for a while because Jenna accidentally kissed the boy that Tamara liked, even though they’ve been best friends forever.

A friendship isn’t easy to maintain. Not only can distance, a change in heart, or backstabbing change a friendship, but so can a boyfriend, or a new sports team. Nothing stays the same when you’re a teenager, and Awkward really captures how easily a friendship can disappear.

Do you have an example of a changed friendship? Are you excited for MTV’s new season of Awkward? Leave me a comment below or talk to me on my Facebook or Twitter.

The post Changing Friendships In High School appeared first on HelloGiggles.

My mom had gotten me four tickets to the Justin Bieber concert, with VIP passes and a meet and greet. Unfortunately for me, though, the tickets weren’t actually mine, and I had to go to the concert with my 9-year-old sister and my 70-year-old grandmother. I’m not complaining; I was fortunate enough to even get tickets that were VIP, so I couldn’t really say anything.

I left school early because I had the meet and greet. We drove up to the arena where everything was taking place, and there were girls lined up along the block. At this time the concert wasn’t starting for another four hours. They were screaming so loud that I wanted to just get a huge megaphone and scream at them, “SHUT UP, HE’S JUST A BOY!” I don’t think they would have listened, though. These girls were so insane – they were holding signs that said, “JUSTIN WILL YOU MARRY ME? OH WAIT, YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!” and “Swag on me, Justin ”. That day, I really feared for my generation.

I waited in line for an hour, and finally when I went in to meet him, I realized how tired he looked! My mom is a songwriter, and she’s told me how when she goes on tour with the artists she works with, that they pretty much are 10000% exhausted 10000% of the time. I felt bad for him. My loud grandmother felt the need to say, “HEY JUSTIN, WE’RE CANADIAN, TOO!”. This kind of made him a little bit cheerful, but I didn’t want to annoy him too much, considering the fact that there were still 25 people waiting behind us and he had to get ready for a huge concert. He asked us how we were doing and we said good – he’s just so darn nice! He is SO cute, too. Even cuter in real life. I was shaking the whole time, because, well, it’s Justin Bieber.

This our picture with Justin Bieber. You can see me right next to him, and my Grandmother who is so cute, and my little sister wearing a shirt that says "You have to visit my blog right now" even though she doesn't have a blog, and my Mom trying to play it cool even though we all know she secretly bought the album. We didn't know the girls on the end, because we had to be in groups of six.

There’s my picture with Justin. He’s so adorable and nice!

We left the backstage meet and greet thingy and waited a few minutes for them to open the arena so we could sit down. At this point, there were girls screaming and crowding around the windows where we were taking the pictures with him, and I pretended that the girls were fangirling over me and not Justin. We got this Mexican food and sat down in the arena, and our seats were floor in the second row. Literally the best seats.

It took an hour for the arena to fill up. I went to the Portland concert because that’s where I live (duh!) and the arena we went to can hold up to 20,000 people. There were so many girls. So many. I’m not sure if these girls thought this was a middle school dance, but the short dresses and boobs falling out and short SHORT shorts were so unnecessary. It’s October. I felt really embarrassed to be classified as a teenage girl right then. Whenever someone from backstage would come out on stage, the girls would scream SO LOUD that I thought my ear drums were going to burst into a million pieces, along with my head. These girls behind us were screeching so obnoxiously that I was one scream away from yelling at them, “BEING ANNOYING IS NOT GOING TO GET JUSTIN’S ATTENTION SO PLEASE DO US ALL A FAVOUR AND SHUT UP.” But that wasn’t the nice thing to say, so I gave them the death stare instead. Finally, after much waiting, the opening act came out. I knew it was going to be Carly Rae Jepsen, so when Cody Simpson came out, I became a fangirl for a while.

I love Cody Simpson. I’m not a crazy fan, but I think he’s so incredibly attractive, and he sings so well and his songs are so catchy. I was screaming. I kept yelling at my Mom, “CODY SIMPSON IS HERE MOM HE’S HERE HE’S HERE HE’S HERE.” My grandmother was staring off into the distance. My sister was playing on her iPad. My Mom was knitting. Pardon me? I was so insulted. I could have brought three friends to this concert, which I had been anticipating, and I knew so many people who wished they could have gone more than anything, but instead I went with threee people who were obviously not the least bit interested in this concert.

I enjoyed Cody’s seduction-y songs, and then Carly Rae Jepsen came out. I was excited, too, because I love her songs. They’re so catchy and fun. She sang her first song, and I’m gonna be honest here… Maybe it was her mic. Maybe it was her voice? It just wasn’t working for me. Or anyone else in the crowd. She was off key most of the time and her pitch was just weird. I love you still, though, Carly!

There was an hour break. It was a drag. By then my phone had died and potential tweets about Justin had, too – which made me sad. I was in a good mood but it was tainted by the fact that my entire family was acting so unenthusiastic about the fact that we had SECOND ROW FLOOR SEATS TO A JUSTIN BIEBER CONCERT. Like, really?

Justin eventually came out and the crowd was wild. No, I’m not sure wild is the right word. I think barbaric is more fitting. Girls all around me were sobbing and there was snot and spit and it was honestly the most disgusting thing ever. Justin came through on these really artsy metal wings from the ceiling, and it was so nice. My sister was watching and my Mom stopped knitting, so it was going well. I have the album so I was singing along, and it was pretty great! Justin sang a few more songs, and he sounded amazing. You can tell that this is really what he loves to do.

‘One Less Lonely Girl’ came up, and I KNEW this was my only opportunity. For those readers who haven’t seen the Justin Bieber movie (you’re really out of the loop), ‘One Less Lonely Girl’ is when a girl from the crowd is picked to go up and be seduced by Justin. He gives her flowers and everything. I locked eyes with Kenny, Justin Bieber’s bodyguard and friend, and I knew Kenny was one of the people who is in charge of choosing the ‘One Less Lonely Girl’ girl. I was looking right at him and smiled really big, and he pointed at me to this stage manager, and then he walked away. THIS CLOSE. I was that close! I wasn’t chosen, though. I looked over to my family to tell them, and my sister was actually napping. She was lying down on all 4 of our seats and she was using her hoodie as a blanket. Maybe this shouldn’t have annoyed me, but it really did. SHE DOESN’T EVEN LIKE JUSTIN BIEBER. AND SHE’S SLEEPING ON THE SEATS ON THE FLOOR OF THE BIGGEST CONCERT OF THE YEAR. This made me really mad. I reminded myself where I was, and was okay again, but I yelled at my mom, “I’M NEVER GOING TO A CONCERT WITH MY FAMILY EVER AGAIN.”

The ‘One Less Lonely Girl’ girl they chose probably loved Justin way more than me, so I was happy for her. That must have been exciting! There was a video showed about Justin’s journey to stardom, and it was really interesting – his story is so inspiring!

In the middle of a song, Justin had to change his mic. He lifted up his shirt and his underwear and abs were showing, and I swear to holy Mark Zuckerberg, the girla were yelling so ear-splittingly loud that I had to leave the room for a while so my ears could regain their hearing. I don’t even think typing in caps lock can express how powerful this sound was. Imagine 20,000 teenage girls screaming at the top of their lungs. That’s kind of what it sounded like. No, that’s exactly how it sounded. Then, to get them to shut up, Justin yelled, “Jeez, you guys are so dirty!” Wow, he’s definitely my favourite person.

Justin’s perception of us Portland girls was definitely changed, I can assume that. These girls in front of me started throwing money on the stage, and he said, “Um, this is not a strip club!” NO! These girls made Justin think that we’re as weird as Portlandia makes us out to be.

At the end, Justin gave a speech about believing in your dreams, and he sang ‘Believe’. It was the most inspiring thing I’ve seen in a while. I loved this concert so much, the singing was (mostly) stellar, the dancing was marvelous, the effort and details in everything really shows and the amount of cute boys was just overwhelming for me. Belieber or not, I would recommend you to see this concert if it’s in your town – just bring ear plugs if your ears are sensitive. Justin is a very great performer and your opinion on him will definitely change if you don’t already love him. I LOVE YOU, JUSTIN!

Are you going to Believe Tour, or have you already gone? Leave me a comment or tweet me! Thanks for reading!

The post I Went to See Justin Bieber’s ‘Believe’ Tour and Now I’m a Belieber appeared first on HelloGiggles.

Okay… pause. This is beyond bullying. I thought some 8th grade boy shoving me against a locker was pretty rude, but this is way worse. I tried to imagine how Whitney felt after this, but I couldn’t. I’m new at my school, and I can understand what it’s like to want to be popular, to want people to like you, but Whitney’s story went way above the limits of anything I’ve ever experienced.

After finding out it was all a joke, you’d think Whitney would have been given at least a little bit of sympathy from her peers, but that wasn’t the case. The kids would point and laugh at her in the halls. The boy who was chosen with her withdrew. It wasn’t a very good time for her.

The people in her community soon realized what was going on, and it spread quickly through her small town. Once there had been attention brought to the situation and everyone knew about it, kids at her school started encouraging her to go to homecoming despite what had happened, and there was a Facebook page made for her support. As I’m writing this, the page has 93,000 likes and there’s a new comment on the wall every 3 seconds. I really love how encouraging everyone is towards Whitney, and I’m glad that all these bullies have been called out.

Whitney’s homecoming is this Saturday and I really hope she wins. The local salon offered to do her hair for homecoming, and numerous other local businesses offered to take care of Whitney’s dress, tiara, shoes, dinner, etc. I really think she deserves all of this, considering all the bullying that she’s experienced in the last few weeks. Handling bullying can be really tough. Do you have a bullying recovery story? Leave me a comment below, or talk to me on my Twitter! Thanks for reading!

The post When Bullying Backfires: The Whitney Kropp (Totally Inspirational) Story appeared first on HelloGiggles.

It looks so cute and smells so good and if you don’t like snow cones (I don’t understand your life??) then you can order a different scented food. There’s cotton candy to corn dogs to lollipops to waffles to donuts to chocolate chip cookies… and that’s just the beginning. Plus, they smell like what they are. It’s so perfect.

Order your tinyhands jewelry today here!

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Where are the pressures of doing stupid things coming from? There are many contributing factors to this: the stupid peer pressures, the stupid popularity, the stupid media. I’m completely obsessed with the media because I’m a mainstream teenage girl, but sometimes it really pisses me off.

Why is the song “The Motto” by Drake the most well known song among teenagers right now? It includes lyrics that say “Almost drowned in her pu**y so I swam to her butt.” That’s quite subtle. I’m not going to go on some huge rant about how inappropriate this song is, because it’s not really my place. I’m 13, that song isn’t meant for me. Or is it? You’d think that a song that contains such explicit lyrics would be meant for an adult, but the singers/rappers of songs like this aren’t targeting adults. They’re targeting teenagers. When teenagers are listening to songs that talk about smoking, “pimping hoes”, and other things that are meant for adults, teenagers aren’t getting the right idea about what’s cool and what’s not.

These performers are role models to us. When role models are giving off the impression that doing stupid things like doing drugs and having sex is going to win the approval of your friends, its definitely not going to inspire teenagers to do good things. Here I have created a list of better role models for teenagers.

Instead of Lil Wayne, Michael Phelps!

Lil Wayne is definitely not a good role model, especially for teen boys. He raps about beating women, and even compares himself to Hitler in a song. That’s classy. Who does that? Michael Phelps, on the other hand, has worked and trained his entire life to achieve his goal, and he has. 22 Olympic medals!!

Instead of Rihanna, Tina Fey!

I will admit, I love songs by Rihanna. They’re catchy. When I look deeper into the lyrics, though, I notice that they’re usually about sex, or… sex. There are a lot of Rihanna songs about sex. Rihanna is very well known to tweens/teens, so why are we listening to songs about how “chains and whips excite me”? Tina Fey is so inspirational: she was the third woman to win the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, she was one of the first head writers of SNL, she writes, produces and stars in 30 Rock and is showing America that women can be just as funny as men.

Instead of Lindsay Lohan, Molly, Sophia and Zooey!

Lindsay Lohan has had an amazing career. She stared in some of my favorite movies, like Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, and The Parent Trap. The stress of having such a huge career got to her though, because everyone knows that now she’s been in jail and rehab tons of times, and even recently failed to pay a $46,000 bill at a restaurant. Out of anyone, I probably look up to Molly, Sophia and Zooey the most. They started this amazing site HelloGiggles, are hilarious and have all accomplished so much!!

Do you know any good role models for teens? Leave me a comment below, or talk to me on my Twitter or Tumblr! Thanks for reading!

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It’s called The Inbetweeners. It’s a a new show for teenagers based on the British sitcom The Inbetweeners. It’s about 4 guys in Highschool named Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil. They’re not popular, but they’re not geeks either. They’re kind of in the middle… in between! Get it? Hahaha.

The show follows them on the quest to become popular and all the crazy things they do to get there… But sometimes the things they do are completely humiliating and awkward.

I’m really looking forward to The Inbetweeners! Some people are saying that it’s not going to be that good, but I think it looks really funny from the clips I’ve seen of it.

Will you watch The Inbetweeners? Are you looking forward to it? Make sure to leave a comment below, or talk to me on my tumblr or twitter.

Tune into MTV on August 20th at 10:30 EST to watch the first episode of The Inbetweeners, and check out a clip of it here!

The post The Inbetweeners Premieres Tonight! appeared first on HelloGiggles.

My apologies for not doing a recap of last week’s episode. I was on vay-cay and didn’t have much Wi-Fi! So, since the last two episodes were a “to be continued” kind of thing, I figured I’d just recap both episodes.

The first episode starts out with Jenna, her Mom, Ally and Sadie at the wedding dress salon, trying on dresses. When Ally announces that she’s buying everyone their bridesmaids dresses, Jenna’s given the impression that since being a bride to be, Ally’s changed. For the better. When Ally brings out a different, uglier dress for Jenna, though, her theory is again broken.

Lacey is hoping that the wedding will be an opportunity to hook up with Kevin, but when Ally tells her that he’s not coming, she decides to try and rekindle something with her ex, Ben. Jenna, who is really disgusted (who wouldn’t be?), takes her Mom spending the night at the hotel as a good time to do it with Jake. While THIS is all happening, Ally is in psycho “I’m about to get married and nothing is ready and everything is going to be horrible” mode. I’m pretty sure all brides are like that the day of their wedding, though.

Matty delivers Jake his tux for the wedding and Matty and Jenna talk. Matty said that seeing Jake and Jenna together did sting a little, and my fangirling heart exploded into five hundred million little pieces…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I- I mean. It was cute.

Jake, being the adorable puppy dog he is, notices that Ricky and Sadie are purposely flirting so Tamara feels bad. He comforts Tamara, and decides to confront Sadie about trying to hurt Tamara.

AND THAT’S WHEN IT ALL HAPPENED.

Sadie tells Jake about Jenna and Matty. And then the episode ends. Waiting for the next episode was the hardest thing in my life, but I survived. This is when happened next.

Jake. Breaks. Up. With. Jenna.

I’m not going to pretend like this is devastating to me. It’s not. I ship Jenna and Matty… and that’s why I loved this episode so much. Jenna is completely devastated though, and keeps asking Jake what happened. He refuses to tell her though, and leaves. This makes Jenna leave, too. Aww!!

Jenna sees that her Mom and Ben are getting prettttyyyy close. She calls her dad and tells him it’s an emergency. When he comes, Lacey and Ben are slow dancing. Kevin gets upset and leaves. I may be the only one, but I want Kevin and Lacey to be together… is that weird?

While everyone is back at the wedding, Jenna’s at home, racking her brain of what she did wrong to Jake. She’s interrupted, though…. by MATTY!! He’s at her door! He comforts her about Jake and tells her everything going to be okay… I swear to God. I’m dying at this point. My Jenna/Matty feels are insane.

Jake listens to the voicemail that Jenna left him and realizes that what he did was a mistake. He goes to Jenna’s house to talk to her (I guess) but Matty’s already there…

Jenna tells Matty that the reason why she’s struggling to fall in love with Jake is because she hasn’t fallen out of love with him.. and then THEY KISS!!! THEY. KISS!!!!!!!!! Jake saw Matty and Jenna kissing. I just… can’t. My emotions at this part were slowly melting into a puddle of sparkles.

That’s what happened on the last two weeks’ episodes. What did you think? Did you fangirl as hard as me? Leave me a comment below, or talk to me on my Twitter or Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

The post MTV’S ‘AWKWARD.’ RECAP: (S02E07) + (S02E08) appeared first on HelloGiggles.

I think her new hair is really cute, and so does she. Judging by her tweets and all her pictures, it seems like the happiest she’s been in a while. So why is everyone hating on her?? FIRST OFF, she’s Miley Cyrus, and she’s probably accomplished more in the last 5 years than you ever will be. SECOND, it’s her hair, and she can do whatever she wants with it. THIRD, she rocks it. So please… just stop. Please.

People are even saying she looks like Draco Malfoy… What the (insert swear here)?! Whoever thought that “insult” was going to be offensive was wrong, because Tom Felton is really hot.

I like her hair a lot. I think it suits her and I don’t think anyone should be allowed to judge her. I tried short hair a few years ago, too, and it was really bad… but hers is really good…. so I’m kind of jealous. And everyone else should be, too. She looks amazing. I’m not clear to why she has so many haters… she’s done some wild things, but she’s also an adult. So give her a break. I LOVE YOU AND YOUR NEW HAIR, MILEY!

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