Subcultural Labels and the Silly Things They Make People Do

I have broached this topic before, but because of its scope it does bear revisiting.

It’s prevalent in an awful lot of cultures and across many languages, probably because it’s how we as humans make society at large easier to understand. We assign labels to groups of people. They could be political (liberal, conservative, etc) or they could be cultural (hipster, yuppie, jock, nerd, hippie, emo, etc), but they are there to group people of similar interests or pursuits.

That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. What is a bad thing is when you identify yourself based on those labels, rather than letting those labels idenfity something about you.

For instance, let’s say you are an athlete. You play a sport. This gets you labeled as a jock. Now let’s say that included in that jock stereotype is the fact that jocks are meatheads. Are you then going to act like a meathead because it’s expected of that label? You’d be surprised at how many people do this without thinking.

The mentality goes from “I play sports, therefore I’m a labeled as a jock” to “I am labeled as a jock, therefore I play sports.” The latter is just unhealthy and, well, stupid.

You could argue that maybe it’s peer pressure: jocks hang out with other jocks and maybe they goad each other into behaving like jerks. My response would then be: why do they feel the pressure to act as jerks as a group? Don’t all groups have their good guys and their bad guys?

Now, the cynic or bitter high schooler in you might argue that jocks really were that bad and were the worst, but now consider any other subcultural label. Do you suppose all those people really act that way because they want to, or do they act that way because the label makes others expect them to?

Let’s expand on this some more: how do you define a label? There are an awful lot of people out there who define certain (or all) labels in an incredibly unhealthy way.

I witnessed a survey being taken on an online forum. That survey asked people what the definition of the word “nerd” was. (My answer was that a nerd was someone who was deeply devoted to or extremely interested in a specific subject, to the point where they will go out of their way to understand it in excruciating detail.)

A significant majority answered that nerds were brainy, smart, into geeky subjects or hobbies like maths or science or computers, and, most prevalent, “uncool.” Let me reiterate: this was a survey taken on an online forum that is about comic books and videogames. They said this about what they view to be themselves.

Even more fascinating was that, when asked what the “opposite” of nerd was, they answered “jock.”

See, here’s the thing. I play sports, but I’m also pretty nerdy. Why can’t a person be both things? More importantly, why do you only have to have one label, or a group of labels that are predestined to be grouped together?

Why can’t you be a nerdy hipster or an emo jock? Why are we even using these words at all? Sure, human habit means grouping people makes them easier to understand, but I think a lot of people tend to forget that it’s really just a giant Venn Diagram with overlaps everywhere.

There are no “opposites” or “mutually exclusives.” And perhaps delving deeper into the subject, people shouldn’t be doing something to make them less of another, less desirable label (such as playing sports to make you less of a nerd). And you’d be naive if you truly believed people didn’t do this.

My point is this: if you want to label yourself as something, that’s fine. But that cannot and should not be all that you are. By that same token, other people are not just one label.

I do understand that this sort of subcultural labeling is most common in adolescents, but consider this: are you a Republican/Democrat/Liberal/Conservative because you feel a certain way on a certain issue… or do you feel a certain way on a certain issue BECAUSE you are a Republican/Democrat/Liberal/Conservative?