The dark side of trendiness

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ARGHGHGHGH CHAVS!!

This just makes me feel so ill - this is what society is these days. I know it's always happened, but it seems to be getting worse and worse. These are the chavs referred to in that measles thread. These are the reason people are leaving the UK in droves. These are the reason the government needs to take major steps to tackle the problem and stop pussyfooting around.

It just makes me sick. Those poor kids.

These two evil little bastards will serve time in a young offenders institute, roughly equivalent to "juvenile hall".

The sorry problem is that.. until someone died.. this sort of assault has been a regular fixture of life here for a long time. I've been goth/metal/alternative for a long time now, and there is NOT ONE person I know with the same tastes that hasnt been the victim of some form of abuse over it. Worryingly, there is not one person I know who has received due justice from the "system" over such an assault.

Incidents that spring to mind include.. a friend having roadworks signs thrown at him because he has dreadlocks.. another friend being beaten with a road sign (complete with post) for wearing black and having blue hair. Two women being chased with a drainpipe for wearing goth clothes.. a member of a rock band being headbutted square in the face for.. being in a band..a 50 person street battle between chavs and goths because some goth kid was getting stamped on and his friends ran away and fetched help... another friend spending weeks in the court system being tried for assault after HE was attacked for having dreadlocks by a group of 5 people.. or even myself in a fight with 8 people after they threw a halfbrick at my partner and I DARED to be somewhat annoyed. And thats just ONE of the inumerable fights and issues I've been caught up in entirely because I have long hair and choose to like metal. I could go on for a long time here. What is noteworthy is that on several occasions the police have been in attendance at these incidents.. and have been completely and utterly oblivious to the fact that this has been a problem for years, and is accepted with resignation by alternative types as part of going out here.

I whole-heartedly support this kind of attack becoming a hate-crime. Its about f*****g time.

And I'll add, it's not just reserved for the traditional 'alternative' types, either... I'm 'indie' (as in the clothes I wear are apparently deemed 'indie' clothes and I spend a lot of time at live music venues) and have found in the last year or so chavs seem to be picking on my friends and I as much as our 'alternative' friends (the ones you mention Macbeth - dreadlocks/goth clothes/rockers/hardcore types/etc). It seems the more labels there are, the more hate crime - because that's exactly what it is - seems to come from this particular group of people.

I've seen groups of my goth friends chased down the road with stones being thrown at them, a dreadlocked friend had half his dreads cut off with a knife, hardcore friends have had punches thrown at them purely for being 'hardcore' (because, you know, ALL hardcore music lovers and straight-edgers [no drugs/no alcohol/optionally no sex before marriage/no meat] are just soooo into fighting and everything ).

It just makes me sick. I love these people so much, some of them are my closest friends, and the vast majority are so open and accepting and loving, and to see them have all this violence and crap started purely for wearing different clothes is just insanity.

That's awful!

Why aren't these people diagnosed? It's disorderly isn't it?

I tend to think it was personal, this violence. Maybe not just about the clothes / hairstyle. Cutting off dreadlocks, etc. To me it suggests bad blood or prior arguments between individuals. There's always more to the story than the media reports. Were these crimes against entire demographics or just the culmination of personal vendettas?

Nah, I read more on this story and was following it up. The boys admitted to doing it due to how they dressed.

I found this on a trendy website. Mostly people in the U.K, Canada and America but it's basically a pop/trendy messageboard.

Some of the reactions are the same here meanwhile you will read some rather disturbing blaming the girl that was killed for what she wore and the guy as though it was okay. It was her fault for being goth.

http://kittyradio.com/soapbox/news-poli ... -goth.html

As was said ^, definitely hate crime for them being 'goths'. They admitted it.

I think slow mutant identifies more with team normal (what society claims is normal anyway) so that means any person in the trends of today's society can do no wrong and if they did, try to make light of it or cover up the reasons that make team normal not all a bunch of fluffy clouds.

Normal people are immune because they have no diagnosis labels. Bullying in my opinion should not be percieved as normal.

Normal is percieved by how others follow the trends of society. Those that question such trends are not normal. Those that are comfortable being alone are not normal.

Normal is subject to change.

Meanspirited isn't about being normal or abnormal. Same with kindness. Anyone can have that and act on either yet all we see are people trying to lump both goodness and evil into one set identity which just so happens to be that all normal people are good and all different people are bad.

When these so called good normal people pick on those that are different, you see how the headlines read to put a negative twist on the victim then you see others suggesting it was somehow the fault of the abnormal person because if they had conformed like the others, they would not have died.

Slow mutant, every single post of yours so far shows you are not capable of understanding the hardships of those that deviate from the norm or can't help but to be wired differently than what society expects.

You seem to be always putting yourself in the bullies shoes and making up excuses or reasons for their behavior other than what has even been flat out admitted to excuse them. Usually that suggests that you are that way in your own life.

Unless you are playing devil's advocate but it doesn't appear so.

Alright then, fair enough. I won't contest the issue. I am not one to argue for the sake of arguing. I admit to playing devil's advocate and trying to seperate the facts from emotions 'cause I feel like we're handing down a sentence sometimes. How could I not "know what it's like" if I have Asperger Syndrome myself? Maybe my approach is a little different than yours. How's that for irony?

Last edited by slowmutant on 25 May 2008, 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No worries.

I'd normally agree with you on the media, but in this case it was definitely the reason for the attack.

Well, I don't know you. It was my way of playing the lawyer of the devil's advocate.

Fair enough, but I wouldn't make assumptions about "normal people" if I were you. Everyone has a label IMO and it's just a matter of time before they're found out as being this or that. How can normality exist as an unobserved, undentified social construct? The moment Normal is observed, it takes on characteristic like a ship taking on water. Pretty soon, these rapidly appearing characteristics wil tickle your fancy as being funny, unusual, weird.

If you only knew the secrets "normal people" carry around with them. If you only knew. Normality cannot be defined with language, only with intuition and that which is remains unspoken among us.

I can make assumptions about normal people all I want. They can make assumptions about me and they do. I'm not going to kill them over it.

The thing about normal is, when you call out something normal people don't want to be called out on then they stop you and correct you by telling you to quit calling it out. When they do the same to you and act like complete jerks in the process basically because they can get away with it, you're just supposed to grin and bear it.

Yeah, sorry. Not anymore.

Normal people don't like to be held accountable. Normal in my opinion is who fits in. There is no set definition for what a normal brain really is.

Normal is a form of blended in immunity.

It's not okay that I am not allowed to speak my opinions on the darker side of normalcy and at the same time I am supposed to just grin and take others assumptions that frankly are thrown at me in a very rude and negative manner on at least a weekly basis.

It's like when others hold you down, are punching you and scold you for kicking back.

Oh and normalcy has nothing to do with who is a good person and who is a bad person. Just the same with neurological differences.

I've met some really nice people who liked to blend in and some very awful people that blend in (normal people also hate being labelled the same way they label others go figure...like blendies) that made my life miserable unprovoked.

Intuition is underestimated.

I use it alot and it turns out to be pretty accurate. It really upsets and aggrivates others too.

You are talking about assumptions but I wonder if you are an aspie then what injustices have you felt in your own life because alot of aspies get bent out of shape over injustices they can relate to.

I can't think of any injustices off the top of my head, right now. But I'm sure I've gotten the short end of the stick oh so many times. If you've endured injustice all your life, people will think of you as they think of Mahatma Ghandi or Nelson Mandela, except with Asperger Syndrome.

Where's my Nobel Peace Prize?

I don't know. Did you lose it somewhere?

That isn't going to stop me from being the proud Punker that I am. :O)