The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [191]
Geeks, loners, punks, floaters, dorks, freaks, nerds, gamers, weirdos, emos, indies, scenes—whether they choose to alter their labels or ignore them entirely, they are free to self-catalog as an identity of one. Identifying as an “I” rather than as an “us” means that there are no rules. Unshackled by strict yet arbitrary, misguided norms, outcasts can be, look, act, and associate however they want to. And in this ever conformist, cookie-cutter, magazine-celebrity-worshipping, creativity-stifling society, the innovation, courage, and differences of the cafeteria fringe are vital to America’s culture and progress.
Which is why we must celebrate them.
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Endnotes
CHAPTER 1
high schoolers view life as “a conveyor belt”: Interview.
“the Bermuda triangle of education”: See, for example, Juvonen, Jaana; Constant, Louay; Augustine, Catherine H.; Le, Vi-Nhuan; and Kagonoff, Tessa. Focus on the Wonder Years: Challenges Facing the American Middle School, Rand Education, 2004.
Only 22 percent of U.S. youth: See Wittig, Michele A. “A Mutual Acculturation Model for Understanding and Undermining Prejudice Among Adolescents,” Intergroup Attitudes and Relations in Childhood, Levy, Sheri R. and Killen, Melanie, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
some of the highest rates of emotional problems: See Juvonen; however, I first came across this statistic in Ryan, Allison M. and Shim, S. Serena. “An Exploration of Young Adolescents’ Social Achievement, Goals, and Social Adjustment in Middle School,” Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 100, No. 3, 2008. In addition, a higher percentage of U.S. students than students in other countries say they are stressed in school. Health Behaviors in School-age Children 2005/2006 survey.
In 1957, theologian Paul Tillich: See LIFE, Jun 17, 1957. See also Tillich, Paul. The Spiritual Situation in Our Technical Society, Thomas J. Mark, ed. Mercer University Press, 1988. This quote is cited in Bishop, Bill. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
Author J. K. Rowling: See, for example, Dick, Sandra. “Rowling Back the Years,” Evening News (Edinburgh), September 19, 2001.
“a squat, bespectacled child”: See, for example, Flockhart, Susan. “rowling rowling rowling,” The Sunday Herald, November 11, 2001.
“are plainly outcasts”: See Weir, Margaret. “Of magic and single motherhood,” Salon, March 31, 1999.
Musician Bruce Springsteen: See “A Yearbook of In-Groupers, Outcasts, Strivers and Dropouts Reveals that Biggies Can Bomb in High School Too,” People, December 25, 1978.
Television host Tim Gunn: See Gunn, Tim. Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work, New York: Gallery Books, 2010.
DreamHack: The video that inspired Blue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o__iURpwMWs.
The pedophile, etc. claims: A resource for students in similar situations is WiredSafety.org, which polices all forms of harassment related to technology and the Internet.
the advisor restricted Arwing’s: “Now he’s taking it into his own hands, and it’s failing horribly,” Blue lamented a few days after the meeting. “It’s like, if a veterinarian said he couldn’t save your dog because he didn’t want to do the surgery because it would have been too complicated. So eff the veterinarian.”
“hyper and squeaky”: Interview.
A substantial percentage: Interviews.
keep the price tags on: Interview.
changed her e-mail address: Interview.
“We get a lot of Goths”: Interview.
“Goths wear all black”: Interview.
“People constantly criticize”: Interview.
“head toss every five seconds”: Interview.
“every song in the Apple commercials”: Interview.
“usually have long hair”: Interview.
“even if they aren’t tardy”: Interview.
Blue’s table: Blue