These groups are ruining our lives. People change themselves so they fit into the criteria of a specific group, the one which they have been assigned to by people who barely know them. I have done in the past, I’ve been different people at different times, a ‘chav’, a ‘goth’, a ‘skater’, but I’ve never been happy in one of those groups. I’ve never liked how I was restricted, never being allowed to like particular types of music, only being allowed to wear specific clothes. Now, I feel as if I’m freed, and I’m the happiest I have been, now having accepted myself for the individual I am. But why is everyone else still judging me? I know who I am, and it sure isn’t who they say I am. And if I’m complaining about them judging me, why am I still judging them? Why am I still calling people ‘chavs’ ? I’m being a hypocrite.
But I think that it is too much of a part of our lives to be taken away, or forgotten. From the very beginning of time, people have been grouped for whatever reason. In the past, and even now, people are being grouped in classes, because of their amount of wealth. Even our surnames are grouping us into ‘families’. Families are an important part of life, and we do not even realise that we are related, even though maybe not by blood, to everyone else in the world.
When we are branded ‘stereotypical’, when racist or sexist comments are directed at us, we are hurt, and yet we are still trying to fit in to a group, to please everyone. And even when we are refusing to fit ourselves into a group, we often refer to ourselves as ‘individuals’, and by doing this, we are just joining another group. We ‘individuals’ claim we are unique. But saying that everyone is unique is just another way of saying that no one is. We ‘individuals’ are the ones causing the prejudice. We are branding others to prove how individual we are. Cliques and prejudice will never die out, because the ones who claim to be abolishing it, are the ones who caused it, and are the ones who keep it alive.
