How many Whyvillians reading this have ever liked, loved, or even still do love a girl named Miley Ray Cyrus? Even if you haven't been a fan, how many of you have heard of her? Even if you're a parent with a Whyville account made just to monitor your little ones, I'm sure you've heard of her.
"Miley? Isn't she the girl from Hannah Montana?"
And you might've blown her off as being another Raven Symone or Hilary Duff. Or maybe you really did love her. Maybe your dad ran in a high heel race in 2007 to get you tickets to her concerts, sold out across the world. Maybe your mommy or daddy payed everything they'd saved up to buy tickets from a scalper when you'd been 10 years old and you looked up at your daddy and said the inevitable.
"Daddy, I promise I'll never ask for anything ever, ever again."
But now it's 3 years later, and that girl you saw sing her heart out on stage and dance around the stage with a blonde wig on, acting like she owned it (which she did) -- that girl that you watched strut down the catwalk with her boyfriend, just another 15 year old boy who was fighting with love and was losing terribly -- that girl that sat on a stool and cried, strumming her guitar while she sang about 'Pappy' -- that girl grew up.
Most of you left. Most of you expected that poor little girl to stay innocent. Most of you didn't understand what she was doing or why everything she was doing seemed so, well, to put it quite simply in a way that most of you refer to her as, trashy. And most of your parents probably even put her down because they didn't want you to 'end up like her'.
"I used to be Miley's biggest fan!"
I've decided that this sentence will never be true. Her biggest fan never was you. It was the girl sitting next to you at that Best Of Both Worlds concert that seemed to know the lyrics a little better than you. It's not because she was wearing a sparkly Hannah Montana shirt or because she had every CD or because you knew her parents bought her one of everything at the merch counter. It's because last fall, she was back in that stadium singing along to every song once again, knowing that for that one night, whatever pain she'd ever felt, whatever problems her life was filled with, for that one night, she wouldn't have to think about them. And what were you doing? You sat at home on your computer, scared, a coward behind the bright shining light of your monitor, and you logged onto your Twitter account and flamed an innocent 17 year old girl who just wanted to show the world that it's possible to go out and live your dream.
The worst is those of you who've decided that Selena Gomez (from "Wizards Of Waverly Place") or the Jonas Brothers are better role models than Miley, better singers than Miley, better actors (or actresses) than Miley. You have to bring your CD with you into the car, because you can't turn on any old radio station and hear their latest single blasting out of the speakers. You'll never be able to.
So I hope this summer when you turn on your radio and you hear yet another Miley song coming on, you sit and reminisce about the old days. Remember that little girl who once sat on top of the world with her legs crossed like a fine young lady and wore a princess tiara? I hope you know that that spot atop the earth will be vacant for a long, long time.
