I wanted to try writing a Take where I don't assume authority on a particular topic, but rather talk about something that's been bouncing around in my mind and that I've experimented with. I'm hoping the lack of assumptions will encourage others to express their point of view in agreement or in contradiction to mine. So here it goes...
So, in the 90's it was all about gelled spikey hair, leather jackets, basically looking sleek and cool. The Yuppie Rise was in the late late 80's early 90's where Wall Street and consumerism became very dominant in American society. What you had were people with huge incoms who were interested primarily in one thing: buying stuff. Consumerism was pushed incredibly hard on the culture that even if you didn't have a big annual income, you still spent all your money and money you didn't have on Christmas. Credit cards were maxed out and suddenly not having that Burberry Trench even if you were a guy was a sign you weren't good enough and didn't belong. Because of this, a great leather coat could make you really cool. Watching MTV and knowing all the music videos that were popular that week meant you had a great sense of music. Knowing the funny expressions that someone who no one knows came up with "i really like you...NOT" for instance made you funny. This is still going on with memes to an extent but not like it was....
Then in recent years what happened and is stil happening is what we can call the Rise of Self Esteem Generation. Parents who had worked their entire lives and were miserable suddenly no longer just wanted their children to go to college get a regular job a regular family and shut the hell up...they wanted them to be happy and they put a lot of money and resources into securing such things. Suddenly school curriculums were shifting to build the student's self esteem, articles were published to echo the narrative that kids who have great self esteem tend to excel (even tho many Asian countires have children who rank with the lowest self esteem worldwide but have comparatively exceptional intelligence and ability to produce wealth), and suddenly having a burberry trench could easily make you douchey if even one fiber of you was thought to be wearing it for the purpose of looking cool. It wasn't cool to want to be cool anymore but rather the opposite. it was cool to assume you were cool for absolutely no reason...having a reason even a good one like being hard working was contrary to this. Self esteem derives from within--it doesn't need a reason it just exists or it doesn't. Using previous examples, making your own music and recording on garage band even if it was bad meant you had a great sense of music, coming up with expressions that you thought were funny even if nobody else did meant you were funny, and wearing a leather coat didn't make you cool but rather a cool guy who decided to wear a leather coat he found in 2 seconds and decided oh what the hell i have to wear something would make that jacket cool because wearing it might mean to those with less confidence that they could be as confident as said cool guy. It was all built around self esteem. Those who had it were followed, those who didn't have it were crushed. Which finally brings me to my theory...
What if you intentionally dressed without a care in the world to the point where you actually felt like your clothes weren't good enough for you or at least they weren't very good looking. What that forces you to do is to take every reaction you get as a reflection on you and not your clothes and not your appearance whatsoever which is ruined by the bad clothes. When you speak, you don't have an ego of good looking person...you can't draw from that. You're forced to draw from your personality and, in this way, you build self esteem. It's a little like how some people say that the reason white guys tend to be shyer and more passive than black guys and less charismatic is because all girls like the look of white guys...white guys can rely on being white. a black guy had to draw from his personality since he knew his looks weren't the norm. He was forced into confidence so to speak in order to interact with others. He had nothing else to rely on.
I know that clothes and looks to play a part, but the problem is many good looking guys and girls rely on that part whether they mean to or not--if its' there they are going to bank on it. and if they don't bank on it they're going to have an ego about it--oh how would this look if he/she doesn't like me? well, if you don't think you look that good that day then what else can you do but try to have a great personality?
It's less about intentionally making yourself ugly and more about learning to rely less on your looks and to not think that it matters so much how people treat you...to humble yourself so that you can appreciate yourself in a weird way. Anyway, just a theory.
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