Written by: Jaylin Hardin | Sports Editor

The world is rife with standards and expectations set upon people to act and look a certain way. With social media, these end up following us everywhere: our homes, work and into academic spheres — even the classroom is not safe from the barrage of content that tells us we have to be a certain way.

Men and women are expected to align themselves with society’s views on what defines their gender. Women have to be conventionally attractive and must always perform — for men and women alike. Men have to be masculine and never show their emotions, even if their world is falling apart.

The divide goes as far as men and women having different vocabularies to describe them. A man is strategic, a woman is calculated. A man can react, but a woman can only overreact. If a man has a high body count, he’s a player. If a woman has a high body count, she’s a s–t. If a man drinks a lot, he’s an alcoholic. If a woman drinks a lot, she’s a party girl. 

But these double standards and expectations are just as drastic when it comes to hair color or even age. If you’re a blonde, you’re dumb. If you’re ginger, you must be feisty. Young people must respect our elders, but they don’t have to respect us because they’re so much older and “wiser.”

Existing is impossible. In your twenties, it’s exhausting to try and be what everyone else wants you to be, while also trying to figure yourself out. You can’t be too loud or take up too much space, because “young people these days just don’t know how to act anymore.”

Who else is tired? Because I am. Even our generation has too many expectations for ourselves, and we are often seen as the generation that is breaking the mold.

Are you low visual or high visual weight? Are you fox or bunny pretty? Are you a clean girl or a dirty girl? Try this protein powder, it’s to die for. If you like this product you must be weird, because only weird people like it.

Even clothing trends and accessories cause a stir nowadays. If anyone wears a band shirt, they have to name three songs or all the members of said band. 

For example, I once wore a Led Zeppelin shirt to class, and someone asked me to name five songs, even though they didn’t even know who Led Zeppelin was. The dude thought they were a 2000s band. But why did he expect me to know? Because if I didn’t, that made me a fake fan, someone who was just wearing the shirt for the trend.

Even industries have different standards for the people within. Female nurses are so awesome because they’re taking care of people, but male nurses? They must not be smart enough to be a doctor. A woman in STEM? You must be joking, women aren’t smart enough.

The internet is just full of other people’s opinions and standards for how people should be, and we follow these trends. Why?

Psychologist, Robert Cialidini, says that people use heuristics, or mental shortcuts, to navigate their lives. According to him, people often use one heuristic when making decisions: “popular is good.” Humans are social — in our past we used groups to survive. 

“For an individual joining a group, copying the behavior of the majority would then be a sensible, adaptive behavior. A conformist tendency would facilitate acceptance into the group and would probably lead to survival if it involved the decision, for instance, to choose between a nutritious or poisonous food, based on copying the behavior of the majority,” Julia Coultas said, a researcher at the University of Essex. 

We, as humans, have the basic survival drive to follow and belong to a group. We want to feel like we belong to that group, even at the harm of someone who is an “outsider.”

One example of this — and not to be that person who always talks about Taylor Swift — is seen in the clash between fans of Swift — Swifties — and fans of the NFL or Kanye West. The majority of Swifties keep to themselves and often do not say anything bad about other fanbases or celebrities, with the exception of the occasional mention of “what the f**k is Kanye doing?” Fans of West and the NFL? They consistently drag Swifties, even if they simply like Swift’s music.

This is consistent throughout fanbases and other groups of society. One person from one group does not like someone or something, or they behave a certain way and the majority of the group they are in follows. This is seen in athletics, book clubs and even friend groups. If someone doesn’t meet the standards or expectations of a certain group, then there is something wrong with them.

So what then? What do we do? Do we try to change society? Well, yes and no.

Society and humans are not intrinsically bad. We adapt to cooperate in society and the groups we choose. As we change, so does society. It becomes more accepting, more cooperative with one another and with diversity. But still, how do we center ourselves in the world of beauty standards and consumerism?

The best advice I can offer to break from what society expects of us is music. Music feeds our souls, it feeds our minds. Sounds are steadily connected to our memories and can trigger emotions within us when we have those neural connections. The sound of a drill at the dentist might give you anxiety. A river rushing by might bring you peace. This is what you are taking control of from society: what sounds and music trigger what emotions and feelings within you. Society and its dumb expectations cannot take that away from you.

The world around you might be loud, but take a moment. Listen. What’s there for you under the screams of expectations and standards? A birdsong, perhaps. On campus, I often hear the squirrels barking at each other, a “muk-muk” sound if you will. 

You pay attention to what you hear, not what you are told to hear.

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu