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I Am Not a Label

by Becki H

Emo, goth, prep, what do all these terms really mean and why does it matter so much. Every day when I go into forums there is someone knocking someone else for being one type of a person or another. It actually reminds me of my old neighborhood. I know you all thought I was going to say my high school, but, to be honest, the neighborhood I used to live in in Brooklyn, New York was very much like high school—only there were streets and apartment buildings instead of lockers and hallways. I remember sitting in a coffee shop one day, reading a book when two people walked in and tried to plop down at the table adjacent to mine. There was only one chair at their table and there were two chairsat mine, so the man politely came over and asked if he could borrow my unused chair. Perhaps because I was so engrossed in my novel or because my mother taught me never to speak to strangers, I responded with a nod that indicated the chair was free for his use. But instead of a, “Thank you” or a courteous nod of acknowledgement, when he returned to his owntable he muttered to his coffee mate one blithe, but insulting phrase,“Frickin’ hipster.” I’m not sure if the lingo has traveled out of the boroughs of New York quite yet, but a hipster is a label akin to being emo or goth in the city. I’m not quite sure what prompted the man to judge me as such—perhaps it was my vintage clothes (I hate labels, so I won’t shop in regular department stores) or my tattered Converse—butsomething about my appearance made him think that he knew me based on a mere glance.
You would think that by our twenties we would be beyond such things as labels, but while we may all grow up and get wiser, this seems to be something that does not go away. The labels may change with time—upperclassy, lower class, artsy, professional—but the way we judge does not. Every day people judge and label me based on where I live, what I wear and what I listen to or read. But how much do we really know about people just by their appearance? With his button-down Izodshirt and cargo shorts, I could have very well said that the person who labeled me a hipster was himself a prep or a yuppie who had no place in the coffee shop because the servers and most of the cliental sported dyed black hair, tattoos and piercings. I didn’t though because I don’t judge people by appearances; I make decisionsabout their character based on their personality.
In his book Geeks, Freaks and Cool Kids,Murray Milner Jr. suggests that teens' particular obsession with statusis because "they have so little real economic or political power." Soinstead, they decide to focus on things they can control, which is howthey appear to others. As much as we do not like to admit it, we as human beings are essentially animals. Not, just animals, in fact, butpack animals. This is why we seek the acceptance of a group, not justin high school, but in life. “Acceptance is a confidence booster that helps a person walk down that high school hall with his/her head just alittle higher,” states a University of Michigan report entitled Cool Kids and Losers: The Psychology of High School ....
The idea of labels has changed drastically over the years though. In a recent article from The Boston Globe,author Taryn Plumb posited that we can no longer judge people based solely on the clothes they wear. “If there is a trend in teen fashion,it's that traditional high school archetypes - jocks, preps,princesses, even punks - are endangered species,” reported Plumb.Instead, today's kids are guided by a crackling blend of experimentation and hybrid customization.” Vintage shopping and a real spirit of DIY are working to virtually eliminate labels based solely on appearances.
Researcher and internet expert Danah Boydalso points to the internet as a way in which teens today are nowgrowing beyond specific social groups. No longer are we tethered to asingle clique in our lone high school, but now with the internet, we are able to explore our own interests and create a multitude of identities all through the safety our computers. “While social categories do play a significant role in teen life, neatly definedcliques are not that normative,” says Boyd, “Still, gossip and boundarymarking are part of everyday teen status struggle.” So while I balk at being judged for the way I look or what I listen to, I do concede that I enjoy being a part of a community.
While I hated being judged as a “hipster” because I lived in a certain neighborhood, I did enjoy the fact that in my neighborhood there were music stores that specifically catered to my taste in music, secondhand clothing stores on every corner and bars full of people that I knew and enjoyed hanging out with. So while goth, emo, prep or jockare broad terms that scarcely scratch the surface of an individual ’spersonality, maybe it’s time that we acknowledge we all want to be apart of some community and just leave the labels to the soup cans.(с)