This is largely in response to the last few articles, I just had to put
in my 2 cents...

Personally, I have seen many people be branded with stereotypes in my
time. But me, I just kinda make my own. If I had a choice I would be
into the Heavy Metal scene, with long hair and such, but I can't be
bothered to grow my hair that long. I almost got there, and I had hair
down past my shoulders when I tried an interesting social experiment. I
turned that hair into a 16' Mohawk, 5 huge spikes, bright Blue.
Personally Punk is not my favourite subculture so to speak (I am more of
a goth / metal person) but I thought it would be good nonetheless. I
started wearing Punk clothes, like the particularly inventive 'rescued
grease rags sewed into a tshirt with its own cloth as the stitches'
shirt and the converted black jeans. It was fun, I got all the piercings
cleverly forged and got all dressed up and I'd go into malls and stuff.
You know what, In peak hour shopping when everythings shoulder to
shoulder you'd be suprised how much of a gap opens up when you are a
punk. And how closely the mall security follows you, and also how many
shops open up a new register and invite you to it when you hop in a
line. Those were some of the upsides. Among the downsides were the fact
that noone took me seriously anymore, especially strangers. I kept it
for almost 8 months, and in the end only shaved it because my friend
botched a maintainence of it and made it look somewhat stupid. Now, was
it worth it? Hell yeah, I learnt much about people by making myself
different. Nobody treated me the same, sometimes people crossed to the
other side of the road. Then I thought, what if I was different somehow
other than this? Like Black, or Gay or a Woman (Using as an example of
discrimination, not saying theeres anything wrong with women ^_^). What
then? It made me question my own treatment of people. I have never
viewed life the same again. Just think about that

Penned by my hand on the 6th of Lanosian, in the year 75 MA.