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The moment we have grown to become aware of our own individuality is the same time in which we learn to discard and replace them for the standards society favors. In Logan Feys’s “Sociology of Leopard Man” the author speaks about how society often looks down on certain aspects that breaks down social norms, and that people are forced to conform to them in attempts to attain acceptance. He utilizes a unique individual who is known as the world’s most tattooed man, and who people often refer to as the Leopard Man, as a reference. Feys is accurate in asserting that people currently live under constant pressure to surrender their individuality and conform to the will of others. One way that people are pressured to conform to society is towards …show more content…
Despite that being cool includes gathering attention through showcasing an impressive individual feature one has, it still falls heavily in the idea of conformity. People, mostly in school settings, have this set image of what’s cool and what’s not, and despite that it may vary, they all involve the same idea. The common idea shows how “cool behavior can range from dressing in trendy styles to being good at a certain sport to being sarcastic to parents; uncool behavior often includes displaying excessive affection and obedience toward parents, reaching out to an unpopular classmate, and expressing interest in school work” (Bernstein). This type of behavior is often showcased in the media, or even inspired by it. In schools, there tends to be a separation of social status, based on their behavior. We have those students who rebel against the rules, disrespects others for comedic effect or proof of dominance, and simply follows all the popular trends to gain this title of being cool. On the contrary, we have these students who are more obedient, presents themselves as good role models, and are more in the side in which they weigh their responsibilities more than what’s in and what’s not. They’re two different kinds, but in the end it tends to just merge into one whole group, as the students who are more ‘uncool’ in a sense, desire to be ‘cool’ and act accordingly. This is always the case in my history of transitioning from to a higher level of education, in which I have relations with these students who used to be very invested in their studies, start to become more rebellious and uncaring for their education as they grow. From what they see in excessively in the media, the people who tend to who have bad behaviors are more popular, and as they grow to become teenagers, popularity seems to grow more of its significance. Since its significance grows, these
The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth is a book by Alexandra Robbins which summarizes the story of seven different teenagers that have many different problems, which many of todays teenagers also have. I found myself having many similarities to the teenagers in the story, for example, when with her group Whitney, the popular bitch, thinks “You didn't day that when we were alone, but now that you're in front of a group you do” (Robbins 21). I can relate to this because I feel as though many people are pressured to say or do things they normally wouldn't whenever they are with their group or ‘clique’. Robbins has this idea that the freaks and geeks, or “cafeteria fringe” will someday grow up and use what they are criticized for to become more successful than the other peopler people. She calls this the ‘Quirk Theory’ (Robbins page 11). This helped me to learn that right now, in high school, not being ‘popular’ may seem like the end of the world, but the reality of it is that after these four years, it wont even matter, but what will be important is how you learned to grow as a person and the true friendships that were made. This makes me want to focus more on my education and learning to grow as a person instead of focusing on how many friends I have or who I sit with at lunch, because truthfully it wont matter once high school is over.
Conformity, the act of changing to fit in. Conformity can completely change a person whether it be their looks, such as their the way they dress, or their personality, like the way they act around certain people. In The Sociology of Leopard Man Logan Feys argues that being human has a right to it, and that right is to be who you are. Society pushes out certain people for not fitting in with everyone else, but also says that nobody should fit in, because everyone has a different personality.
The poem, We Real Cool, by Gwendolyn Brooks speaks through the voice of a young clique who believes it is “real cool.” Using slang and simple language to depict the teenage voice in first person, Brooks’s narrators explain that they left school to stay out together late at night, hanging around pool halls, drinking, causing trouble, and meeting girls. Their lifestyle, though, will ultimately lead them to die at a young age. But, despite an early death, the narrator expresses that they are “real cool” because of this risky routine. Through her poem, Brooks’s shows the ironic consequence of acting “cool”: it leads to death.
In the long trek of life, people are constantly chided to follow their hearts, and to be themselves, and to let our individuality run free. As Georg Simmel once said,“The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.” He is utterly correct. Every person, every mind and every heart, has their own way of doing things. We have associated individuality with singularit...
This dream is fed to us by the people we look up to.... ... middle of paper ... ... ‘In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not so cool kids,’ he says” (Denizet-Luis, 369). So if your different then there target audience you don’t belong in the group which would consider you a type of slacker.
Oftentimes, in the public, people have to be “normal” to be successful and accepted. Author William Saroyan believes that society steers people to be conform and fit in, but he disagrees. In the short story “Gaston,” Saroyan shows that carving a unique path can turn out to be erroneous. Through symbolism and contrast, Saroyan conveys the theme that society does not always accept people’s differences.
Conformity means a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. As a teenager, the pressure to conform to the societal “norm” plays a major role in shaping one’s character. Whether this means doing what social groups want or expect you to do or changing who you are to fit in. During class, we watched films such as Mean Girls, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Breakfast Club which demonstrate how the pressure to conform into society can change who you are. In the movies we have seen, conformity was most common during high school.
This reflects back to real life where people’s social identities can alter the way others view and treat them, taking away peoples’ personal leeway for self expression in fear of a negative response from their peers. That heavily tattooed man could just be a kind aspiring kindergarten teacher, while that sweet old lady could be a subway pickpocket. Shakespeare shows in Twelfth Night that social identity does not always align with inner character; an underlying theme that shines through to our society today.
When being cool you can see it as being socially constructed (Waren, 2014). Most people see cool as not being an object but just as seeing it as a word and self-confidence. Once one feel they are cool their self-esteem goes up and they find more self-control of how they life should be played out. The audience don’t have to be mean or break the rules to be cool there are many other things like helping out people in need or doing things you way without people telling you how things should be done. Once the readers can live their life how they want to and make up their own rules then that makes a person one step closer to being in the category
Individualism and conformity—two very commonly used terms to describe anyone in today’s times. In comparison to the article “The Sociology of Leopard Man,” written by Logan Feys, one of the most notable quotes that relates to individualism and conformity is “to be a human is to be an individual human, with individual tastes [.][and]talents [.] that are distinct from those of others. Living in society, we are under constant pressure to surrender our individuality to the will of the majority, the school, the workplace, the family,.” (Feys Par. 6.)
When I’m around popular people I try to act cool and funny. I want that popular person to think I’m funny or cool enough to hang out with. I want to have similarities with them and I talk in a language they understand. I want to show off what I have and what I have done.
In The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School, Alexandra Robbins follows seven people throughout the school year and provides in-depth explanation with the help of psychology and science behind the conception about popularity and isolation. Robbins defines the Quirk Theory: the differences that cause a student to be excluded in school but are the same traits that will be valued, lived, and respected about that person is adulthood and outside of the school setting. Starting with the introduction of the people: Danielle, the Loner; Whitney, the Popular Bitch; Eli, the Nerd; Joy, the New Girl; Mark (Blue), the Gamer; Regan; the weird girl; Noah, the Bank Geek. Robbins writes about their
So the beginning of the article starts out with the explanation of an episode in the Twilight Zone that has to do with conformity. What’s funny is I remember this episode that they described so I knew this article was already off to a good start. The author talked about conformity and how it affects you, “Of course, there is healthy conformity. Listening when your mother tells you to wash the dishes is considered healthy...the unhealthy kind, in which teens blindly follow the ideas and actions of a group of people...,”(Bhatia, 2017, par.5). I see the healthy conformity as informational conformity, while the unhealthy one as normative. The author mentions perfect models in magazines and all over social media as a factor to a rise in conformity and I completely agree with this. Photoshop has made standards of teens go up to something unreachable. One fact that stood out to me was, “Makeup usage has shot up by 90 percent just in the last decade”(Bhatia, 2017, par 9). I mean, little girls are now out wearing lipsticks and stuff id never have worn in public at their age. As a teen I recognize how people want to not be different from others, and fear comes along with that burden(Bhatia, 2017). At the end of this article, the author explains how parents can change this overbearing conformity by giving their children sympathy. I don’t understand how that would
A large majority of teens want to fit in and feel like they belong, but how far are they willing to go to fit in? The more they want to fit in the more likely they will be easily influenced by suggestions from others. During my second week of eighth grade, I felt like I wasn’t fitting in and that everyone was silently judging me and criticizing me. Of course now that I think about I don’t think anyone really cared about me, but I was more self-conscious about myself then. One day during lunch my friends and I sat next to a couple of girls who were known as the “popular” girls and I thought that maybe I would fit in more if I was friends with them. I spent the rest of that lunch hour trying to build up the courage to talk to them and at last minute I told the friendliest looking girl, that I loved her shirt and I asked her what store she bought it from. She told me that it was from Free People; she then gushed about the store and told me how everything there was amazing. She suggested that I should check it out sometime so I did. I, of course couldn’t wait to shop there. I told myself that if I shopped at Free People, I could maybe fit in with her and even be a part of the popu...
In one journal entry I wrote, I brought to light that the popular group is something that every one of us, for some reason feels as though we need to be a part of. This is from my own experience and things I have observed throughout my four-year career in high school. I think it was perhaps worse in junior high, however. When you are in seventh and eighth grade you are not sure of who you are and are desperately searching around for something to belong to, to be a part of. Why is this, why are we a society that are most often drawn to the most popular, "cool" and "beautiful" that high school has to offer? Why is acceptance the most important thing to us, is belonging really as important as losing your own sense of self? Who you hang out with, who your closest friends are as an adolescent without a doubt help to shape who you are. And it's funny that you seem to end up being friends with the ones who are the same type of people as you. Same fashion sense, taste in music or cars and movies. When searching for an identity in high school, it is hard not to just attempt to pick up the one that seems the most socially acceptable. I know that my personal experiences include these conforming characteristics. Still as a freshman in college I am constantly looking at the fashion of my peers, wondering to myself "do they think I fit in"? This was especially true the first few weeks of college when I wasn't sure who my good friends were going to be; I made sure that I dressed as well as I could everyday, in all the new clothes I had bought specifically for college.