The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [21]
A California junior said she is proud to be indie. “It makes me more sure about myself. I think, ‘Wow, this is what people call me when I’m real with myself,’ ” she said. She described the label as a mix of geek and fashionable artist that manifests in clothes, music, hair, and concise MySpace About Me’s. “Indie kids are into the abstract things in life. You have to be really in the know about things. Being indie means being artistic and finding your own eccentric identity. The name of the game for being an indie kid is to never admit you are one. If you do, it goes against all your beliefs against labeling, thus making you a hypocrite.”
On the way out of the cafeteria, you pass the gangsters (or “gangstas”), who are often characterized by baggy pants for the guys, tight clothes and hoop earrings for the girls, and nice sneakers for both genders. Gangsters sometimes overlap with ghetto kids, who supposedly listen to rap and hip-hop and act up in class. At some schools, gangsters are synonymous with fighters. A Florida gangster told me that he participated in a fighting ring in middle school that was supervised by adult gang members. Now a high school junior who wishes he had more social connections, it took until this year for classmates to gradually “become aware that I’m not going to eat them or jump them in a dark alley.”
Described by some students as a mix of gangster, scene, and skater, “bros” comprise another new student label. Often wearing caps with the brim flipped, these devil-may-care partiers might wear polos and khakis in the South or skater clothing in the Southwest. Bro-hos, their female counterpart, might mix skater attire with Abercrombie.
You go outside. Following the brick wall past a group of skaters, you see the skanky girls, who are rumored to sleep around and dress the part. Out of the shadow of the school building, you spot the tanorexics, the girls who are overly tan and not in the cafeteria, for obvious reasons. In the distance, the druggies, also known as chronics, fade into the woods.
And then there are the floaters, friendly with a variety of groups but wholly embraced by none. They could squeeze in at the edge of a lunch table without being rebuffed, but there will be inside jokes they don’t get and rehashing of weekend activities they weren’t in on because each group assumed the floaters were hanging out with another.
By the time the bell rings, you realize you’ve spent the entire period traveling, searching, torn between your appreciation of the freedom from label stereotypes and your inability to shake the feeling that perhaps you wouldn’t so much mind a label, even an outcast label, if only it accompanied a group that made you feel as if you had a place to belong.
TO BE SURE, ALL of these characterizations are broad, blanket composites (contributed by combinations of students in various areas of the country). That’s what each label supposedly represents. We take mental shortcuts by clustering people together, making assumptions, and forming stereotypes to shrink our social world into a grid that’s easier to process. But why is the perimeter of this grid expanding, with escalating numbers of labels relegated to cafeteria fringe?
The evolution of these labels may be illuminating. Between emo and indie, labeling is shifting from targeting what a student does—studies hard, dresses darkly, plays a band instrument—to what a student feels. The shifting of labels into personality compartmentalization illustrates the increasing marginalization of students who don’t conform. Suddenly, there are not only acceptable and unacceptable standards of dress, but also standards of being. All of this points to the reason that student bullying is up, self-esteem is down, and social warfare is fierce: The concept of “normal” has narrowed.
Late Summer to Early Fall
The Popularity Myth
Chapter 2
QUIRK THEORY AND THE SECRET OF POPULARITY
Throughout years of meeting thousands of students during my interviews