We Are Not What You Think We Are

"We Are Golden! We Are Golden!"

At least, that's what Mika says we are. (Or is that "We are Gawlden! We are Gawlden!" ...? You decide.)

The song came out in September and I absolutely adore it. I love the lyrics. I love how inspiring and uplifting it is.

At school I wasn't the most liked person, the prettiest person, the person with the best figure or the best hairstyle, or the most popular girl. In fact, I'm still not, but at school I did feel like a misfit because there were all these girls glamourising themselves and growing up too quickly, snogging boys (or possibly/probably more), getting drunk and just generally getting up to no good.
I was the complete opposite. I never wore make-up. I had no sense of style, my hair style didn't suit me, I was big, and I was bullied. If this song came out when I was at school, I may have stepped out of my shell more, but no, I had to wait until 2007 when I was in my last year studying A-Levels to hear of this man called MIKA.

And boy did my life change for the better!

Being a fan of Mika gave me the confidence to do weird and crazy things. I did this video for his MySpace competition in May 2007 (Oh, I won it, by the way) and no way would I have done this in school.



It was definitely a turning point. I decided that if there were things I wanted to do, I was going to do it, and the best way to do these things is to just dive in without giving it a second thought. If I second guessed doing this video I probably wouldn't have done it.

Since then I've done several things for Mika and gone to a lot of Mika events. I've travelled on my own a lot more and in London too, and for someone who grew up quite sheltered it was a pretty big step for me. There's a world outside these four walls that make a house, you know? It's there to be seen and I intend to do a lot of sight seeing and memory making.

Anyway I digress slightly. Year 2009 gave me a lot of good memories and all these Mika events helped give me a bit more independence. Mika threw yet another video competition, this time to his song "We Are Golden" and the (original) rules were that you had to dance around in your room in your underwear, like he does in his video. Having lost a lot of weight and feeling more confident about my appearence in general, plus being a performer (though you wouldn't have thought it in that Lollipop video), I thought "Why not?"

The song means a lot to me. It picks me up when I'm feeling down, it gives me that feeling of power. I've decided it's the song that will be played at my funeral, and I apologise if that's a bit morbid for people. I got it all planned out: NO-ONE wearing black, and a video of my best/happiest moments throughout all my years to the song. Looks brilliant in my head - I don't want my funeral to be depressing, I want people to celebrate my life and the things I have done. That's why I take so many pictures and videos, so it can be passed on. I also want to be Golden in my after-life and want to inspire others to live life to their fullest.

That's what the song's about really anyway; about living for yourself and not giving a toss about other people's opinions "Who gives a damn about the family you come from? No giving up when you're young and you want some" "I live for glitter, not you".

I love all the chanting that goes with it. It's so incredible, beautiful, astounding and amazing live. It's like we're all in a cult or something, hearing everyone shout "WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE, WE ARE GOLDEN! WE ARE GOLDEN!" It's so powerful.

So I put parts of this Mika gig I went to in my song. Even if I don't win the competition, I put my Mika friends in there and Mika himself because it's these people that helped me become who I am today. It's true, people do influence you and I'm glad I'm not the same person I was more than 4 years ago. This video kind of celebrates my "golden-ness", if you will, and the person I have to thank the most is Mika himself.

I made several versions and this is the final video. It took me about 21 hours editing alone.

Enjoy :-)