Psychology Stereotypes

So what do you think about stereotypes? Is it somethng in your life?

I know in high school there is a great big thing that hangs in everyones mind about what "group" you fit in.

does it have to be this way?
is it an issue where you live?
do you do it?
is it possible to fit in with out stereotyping those around you?

what are some factors with stereotyping?


So lets debate on these things. about the way people thnk about it.

This should be good!(hope it hasn't been a thread yet)

 

I am part of the Goth and Beatnik clique. I believe their should be these groups because it helps everybody make friends. If you don't join one of these cliques then you are in danger of being called a loner or an outcast which is not fun since it happened to me once. sniff.

anyway having these groups makes it easier to fit in and helps in the daily routine of school.

 

Cliques blow. They are too exclusive, I find, and sometimes degrading. They SUCK! I don't belong to any kind of clique, myself, and I kinda try to go against them.


I took a long time to fit in with ANYONE. First I tried hanging around with my grade school buddies, but they turned out to be good-for-nothing idiots who dropped me when I was at my low point.

For a short while I was kinda a loner and hung out with anyone, but now I basically hang out with a crowd at our school that enjoys anime and manga. There really isn't a style to us other than the fact we're all dorky in our own way. One member dresses mainstream, another dresses in shorts, vest and the same baseball cap all the time, and I dress in a goth-ish, punky style... (to the best of my ability with the uniform.)

And this year we plan to take the school by storm my making our own Japanimation club!

 

I've always wanted to make "real friends", but I'm your typical anti-social computer nerd - all my friends are online except 2 or 3 good friends from school which now live far away

And being a graduate makes things no easier, you have to get a job, and you can't make friends in the job. They're just working buddies. It feels so lonely at times

Sometimes i've tried to make "anime buddies", but most I've met, are too immature for me.

I feel like I just don't belong in here ('the world') anymore... am I a freak or what?

Anyway... i think stereotypes are a way for people to make an excuse for rejecting the kind of people they just don't like (altho mothers-in-law could be an exception ). Well, society SUCKS.

Hmmm... I think i'll open up a thread on schools and bullying. Cya there guys!

 

When people see me,they think I'm either

A)A stoner

or

B)A skateboarder

And sometimes they think I'm a guitar player or all three at once.I quite hate this.I don't do any bad drugs,I don't even know how to skate,and I couldn't play a guitar in my dreams.Sterotypes are just stupid reasons people give to close themselves off from a certain group of people.Like saying that you don't want to hang out with black people because they all blast rap music really loud.Not only is that a common sterotype,it's also kinda racist.Down with sterotypes!

 

What group did I belong too? It started as the skater/stoned group. This group was called Mud Sluts. Mud Sluts because ONE girl was a slut and my back yard was muddy all the time that’s were we hung out at. Then I stopped wearing those baggy clothes. The others in this group soon stopped too. The getting high was still there.

So I dropped these friends and went out with others. I called myself an ex Mud Slut. Of course my new friends started to do drugs. This would have been the group entitled loners or silent stoners. But with me there (the bully) kids in my high school knew better. It was funny how all the younger kids looked up to me. ****, I called them FRESHMEN or SOPHMORE in the tone of voice as something vile. And yet they all still liked me. *scratches head* that was kind of messed up.

Well, I was never one of those popular cheerleaders but I could have been. I was not one of those drama people. I never cared for acting. I was in debate, speech, german club, and I wrote for the school paper in my senior year. I just wished I had time for soccer. I was maybe a nerd but I didn’t feel like one.

So there wasn’t really a GROUP that I was in all the way threw my school years. I was the type of person that could get along with everybody when I wanted too. Hmm I wonder what people thought of me. I did hear that some were afraid and didn’t want to get in fights with me. And when I tried to get into fights they would back down. The best part was I could back myself up and I have only fought twice in my whole life not counting sibling fighting. Wouldn’t they be surprised if they found out that the last time I fought was in the third grade? I do know how to fight. A bunch of guys taught me how too but I never had to use it. *Shrugs shoulders* it doesn’t matter anyway high school is over with. NOW I belong to the M2A group.

 

I wouldn't say that is totally true. At my school it doesn't matter where you are from to be in a group as long as you like the same things as everybody else in the group then you are excepted.

 

Bugs Bunny is EVIL!!

There is an old ep. of Looney TOons w/ Bugs Bunny that included a Black stereotypical hunter w/ Big Lips and Shuffling Feet.
On a marathon of the Bugs Bunny cartoons it was one of the few cartoons not aired (on cartoon network) because of the stereotypes

Blue Crow is 60% smart and 60%Kewl and 60%Funny

 

Man, you americans are obsessed with groups and cliques. People may bash the whole clique idea but ye seem all too willing to go along with it.

Where I went to school here in Ireland there was two groups. The people you liked and that like you and the people you didn't like and that didn't like you(aka the assholes). There was none of this clique bullshit.

How the hell did these cliques evolve?
Was it just a clothes thing.

Here we all have to wear uniforms. Which nobody has any objection too. And makes sense to me. But I've heard americans spouting crap like it stiffles your individuality, creativity or some load of bollocks.

Looking back at my experience no one in my year was like any kind of stereotype. I didn't experience the whole stereotyping thing until college.

 

I really hate being labeled in any group. One of the things I like doing is being different than everyone else. Life is not fun with out diversities. I hate having different groups, everyone should not have to be in groups because then other people start forming hatred towards each other. Like an example would be, " God, skater-boys are so stupid because they are such posers!" (No offence intended to any skater junkies out there)

Preps, goths, skaters...whats the freakin' diffence. I like people regardless of group, sex, religion, race, or sexual preference. Just be your freakin' selves. Show people you have a personality! Prove to people you don't need groups to be special! Eventually you won't even know why you were in the group in the first place. I have nothing against people in the groups, just go out and prove you are a cool person with out these groups!

 

Re: Bugs Bunny is EVIL!!

I have friends from all different "cliques".I just am the way I am and wear what I like to wear.If that puts me into a new "group",then so what?People are people.Regardless of who they hang out with.Of course there will always be those assfaces who don't like anyone except the people they act most like,and treat everyone else like ****.

And 100% sexy.

 

I really hate stereotypes and feel that they get in the way of what the person really could be.
Stereotypes I can link with other things, such as posing and racism.
Stereotypes only have a place in jokes- even then, they can really put people down.

It is of course an issue in my school, like everywhere else, but I don't listen to stereotypes nor do I conform to them.

What really gets to me is when people want to be a stereotype.

If I wanted to see things that were all the same, I'd go to a sock store.

I really love that you can't know a person without meeting them, which is why stereotypes don't work.

It's the same reason why nobody ever understands the inside jokes, even after they are explained.

 

Re: Bugs Bunny is EVIL!!

Mad, there is a reason why Americans have cliques. There is way to many kids shoved into a high school.

Picture this if you will. After my class (2001) passed the sixth grade (Elementary school) and went on to middle school (for only 2 years). There was about 300 who went to middle school from this elementry school. There is a total of 13 elementary schools in my home town that i can think of probably more. 3,900 of us for two high schools. Well three but hardily anybody went to cumminty. Plus I live right next to another states city (this place has one high school) so most of their students went to the closet high school (mine). There is also the air force base and most went to the closet high school (mine) considering there is no high school at the base. I think about over 1,800 graduated from this kinda large high school.

There is no possible way anyone could have known everyone. And also the high school goes from 9th to 12th. I know for a fact that 2002 was a bigger graduating class and 2004 was bigger then that in my home town. I am not to sure on 2003. I think when I graduated there was said to be like nearly 8,000 students at my high sschool. There is no way that anyone could remember all these kids or hate/like all of them.

So why would we hate on people we have never met? That wouldnt make sense. So yes friends sat with friends and the word clique came into play. Most friends dress a like consdiering they have a comen interst. So it wasn't an outfit thing. There is some groups that hate other groups so that helped the word clique form.

Well I live in no wheresville in North Dakota, USA. (ND is touching the Canadain border). My town is near one of the fifth highest in population of North Dakota. New York is way bigger then ND as population goes. So bigger population more people graduating its the whole story of people not knowning everyone and starting "cliques" all over again.

I for one don't think there is any cliques just friends hanging out together. And it is easy to go from one group to another. All you have to do is get to know one person from another group.

 

Re: Re: Bugs Bunny is EVIL!!

Yeah that was the other group I was gonna put in. The people you just don't know. My school was far smaller that yours but I still didn't know most people in my year.

But all that said. We are all guilty of stereotyping. It's like hypocracy. We're all guilty of it, the key is to try and minimise it.
If you see a person walking down the street dressed a certain way or is a certain race, your gonna make a judgment about that person. What music they like, their personality, what they like etc. It's human nature, were just trying to analyse that person on what we know, what we've experienced and what media tells us. Stereotyping.

Now, I don't see anything wrong with that at all. As long as you realise what your doing and that it could be wrong. It's taking your stereotyping as fact that would be the mistake.

I'm sure I get stereotyped every day by people because of the way I look. They probably think hey that guy has long hair and a beard I bet he gets stoned and likes heavy metal. And they'd be totally right. So I can't really complain about that.

 

At my school, I was constantly surrounded by rich kids who whined all the time when their daddy wouldn't buy them a new car after the one they got last year wasn't trendy any more.
I never had a problem with any of the major cliques; they all liked me for some reason or other (which is kind of odd because I often wanted to punch out everyone I knew).
Breaking away from the norm, I formed my own clique out of computer nerds, chess geeks, perverts and rockers. We eventually even conquered some of the school clubs.
I tell you, you cannot just associate with people based on similar interests or stereotypes, because then everyone you know will be the exact same. A common bond can (and must) be formed between a variety of people to truly experience life. One of my friends likes math, por ejemplo, and I hate it. Another guy is a hard core Catholic, and another's an atheist. We all get along just fine, regardless of stereotypes.
Some people viewed me as a nerd, others called me a punk, others still thought I was some kind of violent sado-masochist, just based on the way I looked on any given day. The younger students at school were afraid of me, while the older ones were (for the most part) indifferent. I transcended stereotypes.
I guess my point is that you can only really be a stereotype if you allow yourself to be labelled as one. If you don't want everyone to think you're a nerd, for crying out loud, quit sitting in your room playing with your computer. If you hate being called a punk, find a hobby other than yelling stuff and getting plastered. And, in my case, if you don't want to be labelled a sado-masochist, stop banging your head on walls and jabbing yourself with pointy objects.
Stereotypes are a false guise that some people assume, while other are forced onto people. Don't let it get you down. Names and labels don't matter anyway. If I called an elephant a mushroom does that make it less of an elephant? Would a rose by any other name still not smell as sweet? And above all else, if a metalhead and a prep stab each other, would both not bleed red?

 

At my school there's the stoners, the jocks, the rappers/"gansters", the posers (punk/goth types that insist they are), musicians/poets, anime-freaks/nerds/gamers, rich kids/preppies, poor kids/"bottom-feeders" and outcasts. I was mostly in the anime-freaks/nerds/gamers and poor kids/"bottom-feeders" group, and those were the kind of people I talked to, along with a few of the posers, stoners and musicians. Now I'm really just one of the outcast-types.

Though, anyways, I don't much like the idea of groups and cliques and such. Then there's all the stereotypes. People with glasses are smart, people who wear black are depressed, black people are thieves, jocks are stupid. Of course, in my school, a lot of this is true, there's plenty of places I'm sure it's far from it.

Anyways, I think that there's little we can really do about all of these stereotypes and cliques and the likes, because there's bound to be at least one person who's always just on the outside and not like the idea... conforming everyone to the same belief is coming too close to a Utopia for my tastes and I wouldn't waste my time trying. But, hey, may get lucky. But that's just my opinion. Though really, I have to say it seems like Hamish made the most sense.

 

I went to uniform schools for five years, and there were still cliques everywhere. There's more to clichés and stereotypes than the kind of clothes someone wears.

 

I hate the idea of uniforms. Just the notion that I don't have the freedom to wear what I want in school sounds awful to me. My school was flirting with the idea, but when over half the student body signed a petition saying they'd commit truancy if uniforms were brought in, the school quickly changed their minds. Thank God.

Who knows, maybe it's just an American thing.

 

My brother went to a uniform school and they adapted to this by singling people out by HOW they wore uniforms (with or without belts for the pants, how many buttons buttoned, shirt tucked in or untucked, so on and so forth). The sad truth is people these days find ways around things, and even if we knock out the problems of clothes people will start judging more on physical appearance (which'll leave me pretty much screwed )