Isn’t it peculiar that no matter where a person goes these days, someone is trying to pressure them into being someone else, someone they are not? Of course fashion magazines may come to mind in such a circumstance, as they are a quick scapegoat for society’s tribulations. This is not the problem though, society as a whole, pressures people to be a person they are not, to ‘impress’, or be ‘accepted’, or to ‘fit in’… to a mold. Everywhere I go there is some type of media, peer, or music artist trying to persuade me, the gullible teenager, to be someone I am not!

So why all this arguing about being the same? Being unique? We are all being pulled into some sort of mold, maybe just by following different paths. For example; the non – conforming conformists. Yes that’s right; those teenagers who run around listening to fast paced, frantic music where the singer (if you can call it singing) yells into the microphone about human rights, and all those darn unadventurous, fashion conscious, types who make life so darn unbearable for the rest of us exceptional types. But wait. I was once a part of that scene, the ‘punk scene’ as labeled, where everyone wears tons of holes through their faces and dresses in green army gear, and wear patches that say, “boycott industry”.

I was once at a show and the singer of one of the bands was giving us a speech on what a great person he was because the overalls he was wearing, had been saved from an untimely death of meeting the garbage dump. Where they should have been. He then went on to bash television, the radio, and media in general. Basically stating that we are all naïve conformists who are heading for doom, because we are not as economical as he, and we waste away in front of the television set, while rotting our minds with the news of… oh yeah, that’s right, reality! Well after his entertaining lecture on how he gets all his stuff free, and is so economical; I question the fact that, ‘Hey buddy, where did all your gear come from? Amps, guitars, drums? I doubt you fished all those out of the garbage. Not likely, those had to be paid for.

After the oh-so-inspiring lecture I had been treated to that weekend, I was to return to my trendy, conformist school the following Monday. Now here is a complete contradictory side of the spectrum to the previous. As I walk through the hallways to my awaiting classes, I hear high-pitched screams of peers in the hallways, discussing the past weekend “Omigod! Did you watch Beverly Hills 90210? Johnny Smith is so hot! Teehee!” I pass them in my favourite torn jeans, purchased with cash that I earned myself. Not nearly enough to afford what these girls are wearing, but then again: their daddies give them all the money they need to be happy (sorry but my parents don’t buy my love, they teach me life values). I get a few upturn noses and snide remarks as I pass the more fashionable crowd, as I am not sporting the latest hot pink miniskirt, that everybody else is wearing.

Can a young person not win is such a tug of war between classes? Either I am naïve for being sucked into our society’s government run economy, and shunned for, ‘gasp’, buying my clothes at a store! Or I am not hip because those clothes were purchased at thrift and consignment stores, and that my sweater is so last season! Oh dear! What I’m I to do if I wear a thrift store top with brand new trendy jeans? Will I be cast into society’s darkness for such a huge fashion oversight? Well not in my books at least, or those I consider friends, because such materialistic matters are irrelevant.

As far as I am concerned I will carry on being pulled from the middle, being the mediator of the two worlds, because it’s my hard earned cash and I can spend it where I please! Sure I spend most of my cash on clothing from thrift stores, but hey, if I see a trendy shirt that I take pleasure in, then I will purchase that shirt and wear it with pride, just like everything else I worked for. I also like to watch my favourite programs on the television, and I enjoy some hip and happening trendy music, just as much as the independent punk music artists. None of that makes me a naïve, gullible, or brainless individual. I am what I am, and if that means beings a fence sitter, then so be it. I’m not afraid to be myself; and the trendiest people in my books are individuals who are proud of what they are, and do not try to be any different, no matter what anyone else thinks. Even if they are a conformist, or a non-conforming conformist, they can still be themselves in this ever-changing world of ours.