The Freak Manifesto

This is the text of an e-mail rant I sent to the spookykids mailing list in an attempt to play Devil's advocate to the traditional "I don't want to be labeled I don't want to be stereotyped" wailings of the list elite after a youngish newbie posted some froth about a "freak revolution." Actually I don't like to be labeled or stereotyped either but once I read over my contrary position I realized there were some points that people should think about before they go about saying "Don't call me Goth!" or whatever. Besides, I like playing Devil's advocate *grin*.

CALM DOWN, EVERYONE!!!!
This list is full of people having kittens over a certain "Freak Revolution" proposed awhile back. Save our overcroweded humane shelters... spay yourselves.
Everyone seems to have a problem with the idea that people label themselves, and others. Now sometimes, labeling is hurtful. But why does it take place at all? Because it's a social necessity. Humans evolved to live in bands of between ten and fifty members, like our monkey ancestors. There is no way that you can have a meaningful human interaction with every person you run into in a single day in modern society. So, in order to maximize our chances of getting to know people we will actually enjoy being with, we send out little signals about our interests and personalities in the way we dress and groom ourselves and in our actions.

That is how subcultures start. Subcultures give names to themselves and each other as a furthur social signal, and one of those names is "freak". That's what my friends and I called each other in high school, and what we were called by others. "Freak", to us, indicated a group of people with a morbid and irreligious outlook, politically aware and, unlike those around us, willing to act on our awareness. In other places where the term "freak" is used for a subculture, it may have different meanings... including a fondness for black hair and clothes. Obviously these are not the dictionary meanings of freak, as many of you have pointed out, but language is a thing that lives and evolves everyday.

Let's take an example of how important labels can be. My [ex-]boyfriend just moved back to Indiana, and my roommate moved out and is not speaking to me. I have the option of making new friends or talking to my potted plant. So do I just go out onto campus and attempt to strike up conversations with every single person I see? Not only would that be impossible at a school the size of Cornell, it would be terribly unproductive. I'm not a very sociable person. I don't like most people, most people don't like me, and the best I could hope for is shallow, "let's have lunch together" kinds of acquaintances.
But if I go into the database of Cornell student webpages, I can search under three words (in case you're wondering, in my case those words would be goth, birdwatching, and atheism) and come up with a nice neat list of people with whom I share common interests, people who are likely to have similars outlooks, tastes, and concerns as my own, and people with whom I could therefore stand at least a chance of bonding deeply with. Yes, I have been friends with people who would not be turned up by this search, but all my truly close friends... the ones I would trust my life with... share at least one of those interests with me.

We all label. Are you a Christian? A Jew? An Atheist? A Satanist? An African-American, Mexican-American, Polish-American, Native American, Asian-American, French-American, Italian-American? An American? A Canadian? A teenager? A man? A woman? A homosexual? A heterosexual? A bisexual? Asexual? A cat person, a dog person, a horse person? A cheerleader? A chess player? Band member? These are all labels. No one is pissed when you apply one to yourself, it's a way of explaining a facet of your identity in very few words. Why should the words freak or goth or Manson fan be any different?

And what would happen if, as someone proposed, we all stopped labeling and just acted to express ourselves as individuals? Well let me tell you... no one is so totally individual that they are completely unlike anyone else in the whole world. Therefore, you'd quickly noticed that certain people looked and acted similarly to each other, because they had similar personalities. People who acted and looked similar would seek each other out and become friends. Others would note the similarity, and when talking about society at large they'd develop some sort of linguistic shorthand to refer to the group as a whole... in other words, a label. Kids, who being young primates mostly learn by imitation, would try out different styles as they decided which identity was truly their own. In short, everything would be EXACTLY AS IT IS NOW.

So why are you all complaining about this as if someone stuck a lighted sparkler up your ass? The "Freak Revolution" post was not a particularly outstanding example of human stupidity as human stupidity goes, it was just a typical youthful excess. I am tired of hearing about how bad it is to call yourself a freak. I am tired of it being demanded of people that they not look or act similar to anyone else in the known universe if they wish to be considered intellectually honest, because it just ain't possible.