There’s so much to learn from these girl power icons!
In case you missed it, we spent last weekend at Amazing Comic Con Aloha with Annie LeBlanc, Indiana Massara, Lilia Buckingham, Brooke Butler and Hayley LeBlanc. Throughout the Honolulu-based event, the “Chicken Girls” costars and longtime friends hosted fan meet and greets, competed in an epic Super Smash Bros showdown and more!
And the best part? They also took the stage for TigerBeat’s Teen Stars of Tomorrow panel for a candid conversation about the pressures and possibilities of being a teen star in 2020. Keep scrolling to catch five important things we learned from Annie, Indi, Lilia, Brooke and Hayley during that real and raw chat!
1. Everybody has insecurities!
Annie: “Being a teenager is so hard, no matter who you are. I’ll be on TikTok and scrolling through my For You page, and people are so pretty. It makes me insecure, and being on that app — even though it’s fun — when I get off, I feel bad about myself, and I know everybody else does too. When I see skinny girls doing their dances …I just feel like body confidence, self confidence and self love all really need to be more prominent. It’s so hard especially with apps like TikTok. It’s really hard.”
2. Not everything you see on social media is real!
Brooke: “Luckily, this has been put out there a lot more, but most people on social media don’t look like that in real life. So many people Photoshop their bodies and smooth out all of their cellulite and their acne and this and that, and you need to remember that these are highly edited photos, so you don’t need to aspire to look like that. It’s not real!”
3. Positivity is the most powerful thing!
Indiana: “I think it’s just important to focus on the good. We were talking about how we stay in such a positive mindset and in a positive community, and it’s honestly just about focusing on the good. For the first time ever in two and a half years, I found myself upset about the haters, but there is so much good in the world, and remembering that always makes me feel better. There are things that we can all do as people to help make things better. Australia, my home country, is going through an awful, awful time with wildfires right now, and we need to help with that and donate whatever we can, and go help and volunteer. The environment needs saving as well, so we can fix that. There are so many things that we can be doing and using our voices for!”
4. Education is key!
Lilia: “I think along the lines of that, we need to learn to educate ourselves. A lot of the times, as teenagers or as kids, we think that we shouldn’t learn about the political issues that are happening or the things that are very much impacting our lives. We don’t think we have a say in it because we’re kids, we can’t vote or we can’t do this or we can’t do that. That’s not true! We have a voice and we need to learn and educate ourselves in order to use that voice correctly. We have an obligation to listen to everybody’s beliefs and grow and change and learn, and it’s okay to believe one thing and grow and learn more about that one thing and change your belief…that’s okay.”
5. Teen (and tween) stars are just like you!
Hayley: “For me, one thing I want everyone to remember is that we’re normal kids. We’re normal kids and we have normal lives. Sometimes people forget that, and they expect us to be perfect.”
Wish you were at Amazing Comic Con too? Tag along for all the fun with these all-access pics!