I've never consciously tried to conform or non-conform. Trying to do either of those things is just as bad. Why try and go out of your way to do something just because other people don't do it? Or deny yourself from enjoying something you like just because by doing so you'd be conforming? I don't get that mentality at all. I do things because I want to.



I've noticed that too. You always find people accusing goths of trying to be non-conformist and unique and then think they're being clever when they say things like "But they all wear black." *rolls eyes* This is really because of the spookykids and moshers trying to rebel and be different and all that and going on about being anti-trendy, anti-prep etc and then people think that's what goths are like.

Blckencht, valid points, enlightening hopefully. I've been labelled quite a bit in the past years, to be honest, it didn't phase me much, I just figure if you aren't yourself or are afraid of expressing your true feelings/interests because of some moral code out there, then you're sacrificing yourself in general, a waste of a being in a way. One question though, who exactly is real? Everything/one is influenced by something else and thus becomes another version of that previous thing....well, according to Neiszche anyhow. It pretty much makes sense though.

on a perhaps contradictory side note, those who represent things they are far from understanding are a threat to the representation of a vast number of people, and they should get a hint before their naivity becomes even more contagious...however, those who are overly influenced by the opinions of others aren't worth recognition, there are SOME forms of individual thinkers out there!

Well, yes, and I do believe I stated that in my initial post - that I was, in ways, forced to non-conform.

I have my reasons for not conforming to some things, and equally strong, if not stronger, reasons for conforming to other things.

I think the whole "non-conformity" thing is a bit hard to find these days. More and more people - usually the teenagers going through the whole phase or whatever you want to call it - claim to be non-conformists. To be very pedantic about it, which is how a lot of people are, non-conforming these days is conforming.

Personally, I was never interested in either of the two words or anything to do with them. I was and always have been interested in just being myself. I don't draw any attention to it, there's no need to if I'm comfortable with who I am.

For a while, I was really into the seventies punk movement. I can honestly say I was actively trying to either not do what everyone else was or do things they weren't. I'd read all this older literature and take ideas from it. I read Farenheit 451 and got rid of my tv :p .
I can still say there are some times Im just trying to be contrary and do the opposite, I hear people talking about the whole "emo thing" and getting into it, so when they started dressing all dark, I started wearing pastels and white a lot. Now the only times I try not to conform is when I get pinned down to a lable. If im getting called a goth a lot, Ill wear light cloth's just for diversities sake.
I dont think I was forced to not conform, I had a couple of friends influencing me but for the most part it was all my desiscion.

Conformity is entirely relative. Someone decked out with a full-on goth look in the middle of a park full of families out for fun is going to definitely not be conforming in that situation - but the girl that shows up to a goth club wearing a J. Crew sundress and flowery sandals is the non-conformist in that situation. So when asking about people being non-conformists, there should be some clarification regarding the scope you're looking at.

The fact is that anyone that's substantially involved in a subculture is a non-conformist in some manner or another. What kind of effect that has is also very relative to the subculture and the people making the observations. I've ran into people that wouldn't think much of me wearing all black, having a half-dozen different colors in my hair, and being pierced and stretched - but clearly think it's strange that I would fly elsewhere in the country to spend a few days at a bowling tournament.

But back a little more on-topic, I'd have to say that, in general, those into goth culture are being overall non-conformists. Yes, they are conforming in a manner, but because it's significantly different from what is mainstream, and is so visible, that whether or not you intend non-conformity, that's what is happening. You get to deal with the reactions of society when you reject that which is popular and common. And those reactions can be stares, being treated poorly by others, being ignored, or even physically assaulted. Conforming to the small group doesn't negate non-conformity to the larger group. And I would have to say that even people who claim they don't think about it have to be aware of it on some level - if you're doing something very unusual that causes you to stand out, the reasoning behind it won't affect how you're treated. You'll be treated walking through the mall the same way whether you just happened to look goth because that's just what you were interested in, or you look that way because you deliberately intended to try and conform to what you perceive the goth look to be.

As to my own reasons for whatever amount of non-conformity I present, well, it's not a decision to just be different. I do what I want to do with my appearance, what it is I like. I'm aware that I stand out, and it's something I've learned to deal with and am not really bothered by. Somedays I enjoy it when I find people are uncomfortable with someone around that looks substantially different, and other days I just wish they'd stop staring, but it's not something that would convince me to change just to make others more comfortable.

When I think of non-comformity, I think of many things. If I were too deep into non-comformity, I wouldn't have gone to school at all, and I would not have a future. (Forgive me if I'm being too dramatic towards this topic) There is way too many thoughts that appear in my head when I think of such a thing like non-comformity but I'm not going to list everything in this simple post.

I agree. Furthermore, I don't think all goths necessarily look the part all the time. Heavens know I don't. I had gothic tendancies and attractions before I had even heard the word.

If many of us are non-comforist, I think it is because we do not necessarily just go along with what the herd moooos .

My whole group-o-friends (bandos) have decided non-comformity is an impossability, and the phrase is used too much...you can't really noncomform in any way, you are conformed to your own set of experiences, rebelion is another matter,...Though we've all trashed that idea as well for the nice sentiment of enlightened thinking...agreement with ones suroundings is not neccesary, only to further ones understanding through purposeful seperatation of experience and review...
'Course, we might be wrong,...

You might...heck, we might all be wrong...still, I doubt that we will be faulted for looking and trying. Z)

I think we might have gotten to a concensus. We may be non-conformists, at times, and we are so because we choose to and have some good reasons and arguments to feel that (this?) way.

Unfortunantely we might be -labeled- as non-conformists by, well, society. Wich brings us back to our neverending fight against the mainstream, and how ignorance and media plague our fellow world habitants.

Does that resume it all?

In order to have any acceptance at all within any group or by anyone, a person has to conform even to the slightest bit. I still believe it's a choice whether or not that person conforms, but would it really be worth it....?

It's a natural thing for any social group. There are certain things you have to do to placate the primitive parts of your peers' brains and reassure them that you're one of them and not one of the mob. It's the same in any situation and it's utterly unavoidable. Everybody who dresses up to fit with a niche crowd is noncomformist, even though they might look just like their buddies, they and their buddies don't look like everyone else.

As far as fashion goes, I think the significant bit of dressing up and being original is understanding the principles of how the fashion culture came about, and identifying items that fit with that culture that people haven't thought of or haven't widely adopted. In this way, you're both noncomforming in society and in that social group; something which when done right is commendable. To be original yet fit in is the manifest display of truly understanding that fashion niche and using some original thinking.

In other words, conformism is relative. It can be judged differently on different scales as well as on the same scale in a different reference frame. sappy florals are as noncomformist to goths as goth is to a bunch of yardies, even though their cross-section of society is about the same size; while all of these are equally noncomformist to society as a whole.

The only important thing is and has always been to do what expresses what you desire to express, whether or not it's done by someone else.

Ah...but then there are those of us who dress/act/adorn ourselves a certain way just because we like it and/or it reflects some true part of ourselves, and to Hades with what anybody else thinks.

I have some really conformist views of conformity; for instance, I would conclude that anyone who doesn't change from the whole Eminem, Vanilla Ice rapper stage to being Emo in the space of about two years is non-conformist.

My story is just the same as alot of everyone's here, you're in with the crowd and you think everything is good. One day you start to have thoughts that maybe it isn't, that your way of life doesn't truly reflect the kind of person you are inside and then it all falls apart in a New York minute (lol Max Payne). I just really kept on denying this part of me that just sat deep inside the untouched walls of my being, the darker part, the part that saw everything in a different way to everyone else I hung around with.

Long story short, it took about five years for me to realise that I wasn't doing it any justice, that I was smothering it in a soft pillows made of lies and idealism. In fact, times were so rough that the only thing that made me unique was my worst enemy. I hated myself. I was truly a conformist in the sense that I wasn't being who I was, simply because society had pressured me into being what I was that I couldn't see it there and couldn't see a way to let it out for the world to see.

I've learnt that being a non-conformist works inside as well as it does out. I feel really out of place in the mainstream world that I just humour for my valued friends, I often turn away my eyes and hope that people like the shallow conformists are gone when I look back. Getting off topic slightly, I know.

To summarise, in today's troubled 21st Century, it strikes as almost ironic that a non-conformist is someone who finds who they truly are and sticks to it no matter what and the conformists are the ones who are fervently part of another subculture every time you see them walking around (I use the white rapper/Emo example). Ergo, I see myself as a non-conformist in a sea of sameness.

My first post Hi to everyone, I'm new...



Edited By Captain Nevarre on 1142350015