Why did you abandon the mainstream?

[randomness]

(a placeholder for a more substantive post)

In many ways I was never accepted by the mainstream. By virtue of the combination of my race and upbringing, I was always going to be the "other". So in contrast to many of my friends, who appear to have consciously chose the subculture, I ended up here because integrating into the mainstream was problematic.

And there are many mainstream assumptions which I think are completely fucked-up. That tends to reinforce my decision. Not that the particular social niche I find myself in is lacking in fucked-up assumptions, but perhaps there aren't as many, or at least there are fewer which impact me directly.

I'm still thinking about this.

Comments

is anyone really different, or is it just the same stuff with different packaging?

[(Anonymous)]

The only time I was ever deliberately, systematically shunned was by a group of so-called non-mainstream, self-professed geeks with "alternate lifestyles." I was friendly, warm, conversational, complimentary; nope. No deal. My style and life was clearly too "mainstream' for them, but ironically, because of the way I was treated, I saw *their* behavior as completely mainstream. Being a wiccan or a geek or poly or of a certain ethnicity or religion doesn't make you immune from being judgmental or narrow-minded, and having been a scorned geek in high school doesn't lend a romantic nobility or justification to being a scorner as an adult - remember Animal Farm? (As a formerly tormented public-school geek -- I sang Christmas Carols in Latin, for crying out loud-- I do have some personal experience to inform this opinion.)

The fact that people need to define themselves as "non-mainstream' smacks of Us vs. Them and a kind of vain, constructed martyrdom.

-Jen V.