How do you choose your hairstyle? How do you choose your clothing? How do you choose the way you smile for a camera?
If someone makes the same choices as a lot of other people, how can you be sure he's doing it in order to conform and fit in? How do you know that he doesn't really like that look? How can you judge a person's motives?
Do thousands of gay guys watch and discuss Desperate Housewives just because everyone else does it, or do they watch it because it's a really good show? Do thousands of gay guys wear Abercombie & Fitch because they feel it's necessary in order to blend into a crowd, or did they fall for the incredibly clever sex-laden marketing, the same as all the straight guys and girls who wear A&F? Or, could it possibly be, gasp, they like those clothes because they're comfy and funky and look like they've been in use for twenty years?
I know that a lot of people do wear things in order to conform: conformity is a very comfortable life-style. It doesn't require a lot of thought and one's popularity is almost guaranteed among other conformists. But how do I know that someone with Cher on his iPod and Diesel on his gym-pumped ass is conforming to a preconceived notion of gay, or if he's doing what he likes and it just happens to be popular?
I don't know, and I can't know, until I know that person. Making blanket judgements about a person's motives and personality based entirely on a surface perception, be it skin-color or clothing brand, is plain simple bigotry. If you judge one person based on your perception of vaguely similar traits in other people, you're prejudiced.
To me, a person is about actions, not about surfaces. A man is measured by the words he uses, the actions he takes, and the effect he has on the world around him; if these are positive, he is a good man, if they are negative, he's not. And it can only be weighed on a person-by-person basis, you can't come to such a decision based on someone's shoes and haircut.
I can't really judge the young man in the video because, honestly, I stopped watching it after about forty seconds because he got on my nerves. I don't really know if he's self-loathing or not (he has several of the hallmarks, but I shouldn't judge a book by its cover), but I do know that he's a negative person, and that makes me think he's not a good person.
And I hope when he grows up and realizes that we are all individuals with our own hopes and needs, just like him, that he'll be able to add a little more kindness to the world instead of adding to its already overabundant supply of ugliness.
