Tea-fueled

...and somewhat insane

I'm a Nerdfighter and a musician and my flatmate started a trend for ridiculous bios with as many nerdy references crammed into them as possible.

These are my stories.

Thoughts on Social Identity

People who identify as part of a clique, or a subculture, often dress similarly. I learnt this fact in Sociology GCSE, and though I may have understood to the point where I could write an essay about it, I only really “got” it this week.

I have been a member of a couple of cliques in my time. Right now, I definitely consider myself  — and I know this will come as a shock to you — a nerd. But I have been many things and dressed accordingly*. As a high-schooler, I knew how it worked: the skaters wore low-slung jeans and t-shirts; the popular girls (who my group of friends derogatorily christened “the Plastics”) wore a lot of make-up and short skirts; the goths wore black, and massive boots and, bizarrely now I look back on it, a lot of pink stripes. And the young, tolerant, burgeoning equality-worrier I was at 17 tried to see past these things, not wanting to label people based on the style and behaviours of their social strata.

But 17-year-old me had missed something fundamental: the reason that these groups form. Because they do form, and this must say something about the behaviour of the individual that they identify with the group, and conform to its values in order to fit in. 

Skip forward 4 years to yesterday, my 21st birthday. I’m at uni, and yet the groups haven’t faded away completely. You can still spot the massive, crinoline-supported stripy dresses of the girls who haven’t quite shed the alternative music roots that supported them through high school, and the long hair of the rocker boys. But the group I have always disdained are the “Rahs”, the privileged teens from wealthy backgrounds. The stereotype is that they study “soft subjects” and live on “Daddy’s money” and there’s a certain resentment amongst other students towards them, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, or amongst Science and Engineering students, who I will admit have a tendency to think they’re better than everyone else. 

I was walking into the Sciences campus when I spotted a group of 5 girls, who fitted my cut-out-and-keep Rah identification guide to a ‘T’. They all wore navy blue body warmers, long sleeved tops, dark blue jeggings and Ugg boots, and each had her hair tied in a messy bun directly on top of her head. They were carrying clipboards. 

I stopped for a second. First, I was confused as to what they were doing at the sciences campus. Second, I was amused, and a little perturbed, at how far they had taken the clique identity: they looked identical. It was all a bit Stepford Wives. 

This speaks a lot to my judging people on their choice of outfit. It turns out they were going to the agricultural college, which sits behind the sciences campus, but there’s no reason they couldn’t have been there for chemistry, or engineering. But more worrying was my dismissal of their outfits as silly, or wrong. Because I spotted another girl immediately after I saw them. And in that moment I realised how I had shaped my own identity, and how I constantly spotted others, most notably freshers, going through the exact same stages as I had, or treading paths I’d watched my friends carve out. She was wearing brightly coloured harem trousers tucked into heavy-duty black boots, a long brown leather jacket and a bomber hat.

Her hair was died red.

She looked just like me.





* Most hilariously, emo.

  1. theperfectshade said: I really appreciate this post, it’s really brilliant. I’ve been experiencing a lot of the same thoughts since starting uni this year & also taking sociology. Thanks for putting my thoughts into articulate words & sharing! :)
  2. sherlotter posted this