We live in a world of categories. What class are you in at school? What music do you listen to? Where do you live? What colour is your skin?
It helps people form an opinion of you. Not necessarily the right one, as skin colour has no bearing on personality, where you live does not dictate your hobbies, and the music you listen to does not verify your opinions. But it makes it easier for people to digest.
Then we get the cliques. This
is more to do with what music you listen to, what you wear, what hobbies you
do have and what outlook you have on life. Like with like, we tend to form ourselves into these groups socially. At our school it wasn't so much levels of popularity, but levels of bitchiness, and the real cows ruled the roost. Thank god for 6th form, they pretty much all left, and those who didn't have turned out to be quite nice people.
People often express these things, sometimes through fashion, to make other people think a particular thing. Most people are guilty of it, I know I certainly can be. Some people are worse for it than others.
But you know when, for once, you don't want to look like everyone else? I've had that a lot recently. I've thrown out loads of old clothes I had and bought a load of new ones, including some Tommy Hilfiger jeans, something I wouldn't have dreamt doing a few years ago. It would have seemed far too trendy to my rebellious 14 year-old mind. But stuff it, they're red and comfy, and I like them. I've gone into overdrive making jewellery so I can have something unique round my neck, and have been giving some away to friends when they said they liked them, but each sufficiently different from the previious.
There's no such thing as non-conformity, that's just another category in this shallow society. You don't have to call yourself a non-conformist to prove that you're thinking for yourself, just do it and the people who matter will see it.
And for the record, the reason why I won't wear the following items:
Blazors - 5 years of compulsory education. I may as well wear a green skirt and a school tie to match.
Converse - sometimes used as special shoes for small children with wide feet. I'll feel like a flat-footed cripple again. I wear low-ankle cut fakes instead, because Top Shop shoes are great.
Von Dutch - I still haven't got over flowery cap guy on the bus, and
this comic strip.
Adidas - I don't really feel like dressing like the people down my road who throw things at me when I walk by.
Kookai bags - I'm sorry, but I find them hideous. But if it's a nice one, then maybe.
Those Astro Boy tops from Camden - they've spelt Dr. Tenma's name wrong! The most recent translations out write it as Tenma, not Temma. I'd feel silly.
Really pointy shoes - some of my toenails fell off a few years ago because of shoes with dodgy toe-space. It took something like 2 years for my big toenails to be normal again.
I know most of this is excuses, but it's why I don't wear the stuff. That, and I'd feel too much like a wannabe, which I don't want to be, as I don't even know what I'm supposed to be.
Call me what you like, but my name is Suzanne.
You know when you read a book and it reminds you of another? Maybe it's the plot, or the characters' attitudes, but you're able to notice a bit of a running theme? It was this kind of similarity that made me ask the question,
Do the fantasy/sci fi genres have it in for the letter M?
This is something I noticed a while ago when I was reading geek fic ten to the dozen: there seemed to be an awful lot of prejudice against the letter M. If it wasn't the place where the evil dwelled (eg. Mordor), it was the name of the baddies (eg. Mord wraiths).
Place names tended to get more stick than names though. As I've already mentioned, the seat of evil in Lord of the Rings is in Mordor, while the Belgariad gives the letter a double whammy with the muderous kings of both Cthol Murgos
and Mallorea. I know the king of Mallorea stops his crucifying habits eventually, but he still crucified them!
Now that I'm talking about it, I'm having trouble thinking of examples, but I did notice it when I was in that phase. Might go back, it was quite fun. Geek is good. But did anyone else notice just how much The Wishsong of Shannara was a direct copy of Lord of the Rings? I had to stop reading it, I felt cheated! I thought Elfstones was pretty good though, it was much more enjoyable.
And while I'm rambling on about fantasy, someone read some Holly Lisle! The Secret Texts series is really good!
If I mentioned the words 'Von Dutch' to an American, I would get a reply involving spitting and distaste. It is so unbelievably unfashionable in the US that it's... unbelievable.
When Skinny came back from California, before I'd even noticed its existence, she scowled at a shop window displaying the latest imported clothes, ie Von Dutch. "Euck," she said, "I think I'll be sick if I see anymore bloody Von Dutch. If you get caught wearing it in the States, you may as well have leprosy."
Time went on, and I started to notice more and more trucker hats. You know, the ridiculously large ones with the mesh bits? There's a guy who gets on my bus with a flowery one, I pity his parents. And they were at ever-increasingly precarious angles. One gust of wind, and they'd've all been chasing their caps down the street.
Before Von Dutch's spores landed, stupid cap angles had only been associated with wannabes and emos. Proper emos I have no problem with, but it's when you start getting into the realm of wannabe emos that you need to fear. They are disturbed human beings.
So I sat back and watched, as I usually do, as Von Dutch grew in popularity. Ripped jeans, Converse All-Star trainers and blazers became more common as people slipped into this trap of American rejection fashion.
And the crown they all wore? The Von Dutch cap at a dodgy tilt.
I've told my fellow anti-fashionists about this, and they laughed at the gullibility of people. But what we all worried about, as self-confessed Jimmy Eat World fans, was that even an awful genre like emotional hardcore had been turned into a fashion.
It
is quite satisfying, when people admire my dungarees and ask where I got them from, to which I tell them honestly,
"Oxfam, 99p."
Long live second-hand clothing.
Okay, I think I just made it let you do comments on everything I've ever written ever, so... you can put your hate mail stright on the site rather than filling up my inbox!
And if it looks as if I have no friends from lack of comments, I probably don't.
Ah well.
