Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Of Stereotypes and Identity

I find quite amusing how humans want to fit in a particular stereotype. There's always the geek, the nerd, the tall one, the fat one, the skinny one, the popular one, the rude one, the drama queen, etc. Why is it that in most human circles there always seem to be the same "types" of people?

Is it an unconscious set of events, i.e. there are particular traits in humanity that can be boxed and appear in every population of 6-7 people, or is it a conscious event, in which, like a performance on stage, everyone assumes the character they want to play?

On Facebook there seems to be a massive driving force for self-stereotyping. There exists this massive array of quizzes which will help you work out which character of this movie or that cartoon you are, or whether you fit in this category or not. In our postmodern minds we rejoice that, for an instant, the characters we see on screen or the personality they portray can be, for some reason, ascribed to us.

Are we not free to break the stereotype and be whoever we are in reality?

Who are you in reality?

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