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Feb. 19th, 2003 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pearwaldorfI don't mean to suggest they do this consciously. Some of them truly are little Machiavellis, but what I really mean here is that teenagers are always on duty as conformists.
For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of attention to clothes. They don't consciously dress to be popular. They dress to look good. But to who? To the other kids. Other kids' opinions become their definition of right, not just for clothes, but for almost everything they do, right down to the way they walk. And so every effort they make to do things ``right'' is also, consciously or not, an effort to be more popular.
My cousin is two years younger than I am. I once asked him why he spent so much money on designer clothes (thank the gods, paid for with his own money). He told me, "I know it's all a sham anyways, but I do it to fit in." I wonder how much of the system of popularity in high school is propped up by thinking like this.
I resisted being labeled as a nerd in high school and middle school, but now that I think about it, that's really what I was. For gods' sakes, in middle school I spent recess in the library reading Bulfinch's Mythology rather than play outside. And somehow, still, I think got off better than the popular kids.
For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of attention to clothes. They don't consciously dress to be popular. They dress to look good. But to who? To the other kids. Other kids' opinions become their definition of right, not just for clothes, but for almost everything they do, right down to the way they walk. And so every effort they make to do things ``right'' is also, consciously or not, an effort to be more popular.
My cousin is two years younger than I am. I once asked him why he spent so much money on designer clothes (thank the gods, paid for with his own money). He told me, "I know it's all a sham anyways, but I do it to fit in." I wonder how much of the system of popularity in high school is propped up by thinking like this.
I resisted being labeled as a nerd in high school and middle school, but now that I think about it, that's really what I was. For gods' sakes, in middle school I spent recess in the library reading Bulfinch's Mythology rather than play outside. And somehow, still, I think got off better than the popular kids.
