As Buffy once said, "If I was any more open-minded about the choices you two make, my whole brain would fall out." Kind of harsh, yes, but true. Buffy taught us to be open-minded, and to embrace differences in people — because sameness is boring. Going to Sunnydale High on the Hellmouth meant a very unconventional experience for most students, but the high school hierarchies and stereotypes still existed and could have been cloned from our own alma maters.
There are the jocks, the popular kids, the nerds, and the loners. Buffy could've taken a rocket ride to the top of the social ladder if she wanted to. Only she didn't. Because she's different, and she gravitates toward others who accept that in her and who have differences of their own.
Her ragtag group of Scoobies generally remain on the outskirts of high school society because they're, uh, dealing with some bigger issues. They still manage, at one time or another, to encounter and even embrace students from nearly every clique. Being different, in the grand scheme of world-ending scenarios, seems pretty unimportant. That fact highlighted what many parents wisely tell their kids when things get rough during those awkward adolescent years: everything about high school will seem so small once you are older. And it did.
The things that made us different when we were younger (aka the aspects of ourselves that the show taught us to love) only got more important as time passed. Now the parts of myself that make me unique (and the things that may have disappeared if I had quelled them at a younger age) are what I absolutely love most. Buffy gave me, and thousands of others, the confidence to stick it out and hold on to our individuality. I'm so glad I did.
