Since none of you OBVIOUSLY cared not about stem-cell research, this submission is upon the basic dichotomy of conforming to society or dancing to your own tune. I know bullying isn’t as much a problem as it was a long time ago, both in last decade and elementary school (young kids seem more discriminatory), but still.
They’re always there. Everywhere you go, you see buff, pumped up, steroid munching jocks and anorexic, implanted models. They are The Fad. The Style. The thing to be. Everyone around you subscribes to this belief: everything they do is Right. The world constantly attempts to squash out any difference with a military neatness. They mold you like clay to adopt their merchandise, their virtues, their thoughts. One is pressured to conform, encouraged by every medium to adhere to brand-name conformity and adopt uniform, national blandness.
But what of those who refuse? The dissidents of Pop culture. They wander, receiving quizzical looks, suffering the jests and jeers of outraged authority, who themselves discarded their uniqueness to adapt to society. Is the reward of personal contentment, to know that you AREN’T the product of Hollywood and Madison Avenue, enough to shield you from the constant insults, the unrelenting hurricane of prejudice against difference? Is it better to be oneself even if that self is not socially accepted? Do the masses mock and malign you for your dissidence, taking refuge in the fact that you arn’t suffering like they are, stripped of their thoughts, their values, the very essence that makes them an individual? Do you sit alone, wearing your personally tailored suit or outfit that went out of style last century, or do you sit with ‘friends’, wearing glittering lip gloss and Aztec Blue eyeshadow or munching on steroids, laughing and discussing a funny movie you all saw?