When I saw Win a Date With Tad Hamilton I was pissed. I wasn’t just mad because the movie was clichéd representation of gender norms in 95 minute form, but also because I wasn’t in it.

Topher Grace had stolen my life. I was supposed to be the too scrawny to be attractive awkward guy that ended up with the girl in the end but only after losing her multiple times to hunkier men who weren’t all bad, but weren’t as good either. When I said life in that first sentence of this paragraph I meant movie-life. I meant the person I was so good at pretending to be when I was 18 that I figured people would want to watch me on TV screens being that person. I wasn’t that person.

Though at 18 I was much dumber than I am now, I still knew that with that power came great responsibility and once I became famous for being nerdy but not too nerdy, awkward but somewhat charming, and vaguely depressed but only because I didn’t have you in my life I would have to find some way to subvert those expectations. Maybe I would also be gross because we aren’t comfortable enough with grossness as a society. Maybe I would be surprisingly cocky because it’s stupid that we find lack of confidence attractive only if it’s teamed with bumbling sentences and small muscles.  Maybe it would be simply be extreme leftist politics because these vanilla figures of teen-idolatry never took a real stance.

I’ve grown. Both in my understanding of teen movie worship and in facial hair. Both make my desire to manifest as a tween heartthrob only to  subvert any desires tweens had for me less appealing. Most importantly Drake came along.

He was on Degrassi. He didn’t quite always get the girl. Then he joined the most badass group of rappers in the US. Sings with the most badass chicks in rap. Had a video that prominently displayed boobs as its main feature. But most importantly he was still cute.

The whole time!

He was soo cute. He still is. Nobody looks cuter when he moves his gaze slowly from her thighs to her boobs.

He’s doing what I wanted to do, but so much better.

The key to the socially awkward, doesn’t get laid guy who gets the girl in the end is that he induces “awws.” Is that when you look at him you can’t help but crinkle your eyebrows and hold back a smile that says “man, I wish you were doing better.” Is that you root for him no matter what he does. Topher Grace, Shia Lebeouf, That dude from Can’t Hardly Wait, Jason Biggs. They all did it well, but then did nothing after. Drake does it while being a part of Young Money – rapping with Lil’ Wayne, Kanye, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, and every other person associated with the badass part of rap. A part of rap associated with drugs, tits, fucking, and gang violence. Yet he’s playing Topher Grace in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.

Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) is trying to do the same thing, but why he won’t succeed is because he has two names. Drake is Drake – he is no longer Aubrey Graham who was in a wheelchair in Degrassi. Donald Glover will always stay an actor because he refuses to let go of his acting persona (Not that I think that’s bad, I think he’s a great actor). He’s just a shitty person with amazing taste.

I don’t want to go on a rant about how confused I am about my feeling about the Derrick Comedy star.

Drake is incredible.

Watch this video and try to not understand what I’m saying: