The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [78]
Lady Gaga’s outfits are not just a fashion statement. They are a lifestyle statement intended to encourage fellow cafeteria fringe to be themselves. “I didn’t fit in in high school and I felt like a freak,” she told Ellen DeGeneres. “So I like to create this atmosphere for my fans where they feel like they have a freak in me to hang out with and they don’t feel alone.”
At her all-girls private school in New York City, Lady Gaga was a self-proclaimed “nerdball in theater and chorus” whom classmates teased for her eccentric style. Meanwhile she played open mic nights at clubs as early as age fourteen; by age twenty, she was signed to a label. “This is really who I am, and it took a long time to be okay with that,” she said. “Maybe in high school you . . . feel discriminated against. Like you don’t fit in and you want to be like everyone else, but not really. . . . Sometimes in life you don’t always feel like a winner, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a winner; you want to be like yourself. I want my fans to know it’s okay. . . . It’s all about letting people who don’t fit in know that someone out there is fine with who they are—and that other people have gone through the same thing.”
Like Lady Gaga, quirk theory assures marginalized young people that someday they will be welcomed for the same reasons that classmates relegate them to what one former outcast called “the land of misfit toys.” Whereas the popular crowd in school might reward conformity, aggression, and a silent acceptance of the status quo, people outside of the school setting tend to admire entirely different qualities.
In a comprehensive review of literature about success, happiness, and influence, the same core qualities repeatedly appear as the characteristics that cause people to be respected, honored, and appreciated outside of school. They are applicable in both personal and professional lives, and to artistic endeavors, corporate undertakings, and the vast range of pursuits in between. And all of these qualities are found in the cafeteria fringe in droves.
CREATIVITY, ORIGINALITY
No matter how trite the observation, there can be little doubt that creativity and originality, earmarks of the cafeteria fringe, are valued exponentially more outside of middle school and high school walls. Companies scramble to come up with The Next Big Thing. The “life of the party” is the adult who has the most interesting stories or the most novel ideas. The celebrity sphere revolves mostly around actors, musicians, and fashionistas, all of whose public works involve artistic expression.
Many companies that have distinguished themselves in the twenty-first century have done so by prioritizing creativity and originality. HBO, which holds the record for Emmy nominations in a single year, is successful because of its originality. When deciding the fate of a show, HBO executives ask themselves, “Is it different? Is it distinctive? Is it good?” Southwest Airlines, which focuses on an unusual low-cost, direct point-to-point route system and ebullient customer service, is the only airline that has thrived in recent years; in 2010 Southwest celebrated its thirty-seventh consecutive year of profitability. Even training for the most senior government executives in the Senior Executive Service emphasizes unique thought processes. The six-week intensive training course makes a number of suggestions to jump-start that thinking, including commuting different routes to start the day by thinking differently. As William Taylor, the founding editor of Fast Company magazine, has written, “The work that matters most [is] the work of originality, creativity, and experimentation.”
Yet so many of the students who demonstrate these qualities