"Dude, are you kidding me? I liked (insert pop culture reference here) way before it was even popular"
This phrase has plagued me for years.
No matter where you live, what you do, or what your social status is, you have most likely come across or even uttered these words yourself at one point or another. Ill admit it, i have. Although i hate the idea of self-anointed superiority through recognition of oneself as the initial "trendsetter", i have to say its something that many of us, myself included, submit to daily. Whether you let it be known publicly, or like to keep it to yourself to make you feel like king of the world, you do it, and most of us don't give it a second thought.
Even more so is when a person finds out something they liked for awhile has become popular. Without blinking, that persons... let's say band, immediately becomes less appealing. Admit it or not, it happens. All of a sudden now, that person feels less "original" and more conforming, or at least fear strikes them that they will appear to be conformist to the latest trends. All the while, every person that constitutes the audience to which the band is popular to, is doing nothing but simply discovering a new band.
Why then is the illusion of mindless, robotic, zombie, all obeying commands by the media instantly depicted in our heads? As far as i can tell, it is because we all see the rest of the world as one group of people, and less-than-often visualize them from an individuals perspective. When you come across a new band you seem to enjoy, you don't enjoy it because people TELL you to enjoy it, or because your friends like it. You listen to it because you like it. Reasons other people seem to conform to the masses are merely networking friends, and by word of mouth. No one person is told by a government official, or by the president of Sony Records to encourage people to listen to this particular band. Therefore it seems this kind of conformity is only experienced by everyone according to everyone. But id assume not many people consciously make the choice to conform.
This concern for EXTREME individuality causes me to have great dislike for the following things:
-Indie Rock bands.
-People who ONLY like Indie Rock bands.
-People who look down upon people who DON'T listen to Indie Rock bands.
-Hipsters (see above.)
-Girls who identify their characterizing quality as "random"
-People who you can picture saying "i don't like being told what to do" (cuz in life, eventually, you gotta be told what to do. I've come to accept this, you should too.)
-Vegetarians who love to let people know they're vegetarian. Directly or indirectly.
-Hippies.
I don't like writing dislike-lists, so ill say here that the people i respect most in the world are nerds/dorks/geeks. Little of what they do is defined as "cool", or "in", and yet we the people of the science and maths continue to enjoy ourselves. Oblivious as to what other people are doing/thinking, we'll keep on doing vector calculus for fun, solving rubik's cubes, LARPing, playing WOW (which i don't condone, but nonetheless, do what you do) and enjoying ourselves, whether our GPA be a 4.0 or a 2.3. Here's to you my fellow brethren.
I like things because i LIKE THINGS. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Everyone, as smart, dumb, educated, ignorant, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, aware or unaware of things as they may be, is an individual. And there is noone else like them. So for those of you so concerned with not conforming to the rest of the world, relax. You've got nothing to worry about.
Just do your thing.
Gonna go listen me some Green Day, Good Charlotte and Linkin Park. Thanks.
-Slater
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