Ok, so I’m jumping on this bandwagon a little late, but about a month ago, Heather over at Dooce posted a couple pictures of herself in her teen years as an illustration of the term “bershon,” which Sarah Brown describes as the following:
1. There is no smiling in bershon.
2. There are no babies in bershon.
3. There are no animals in bershon.
You are bershon as a teenager. It is not a facial expression; it’s an attitude. It’s a state of mind. It’s about being really pissed that you are trapped in whatever station in life you are currently trapped—family outing, school trip, Christmas, adolescence—and then some asshole has the gall to make you pose for a photograph. You silently seethe and act too cool and do not look cool at all, and plot your escape.
Your escape will not come for years.
At night, the wolves come.
What’s funny is that like Heather and Sarah, I too had heard the term bershon before, but I don’t know exactly where I know it from or under what context. What I do know is that it took me a month to find the following picture, which I think illustrates the term quite rightly. Behold: