Unknown songs, underplayed artists, and foreign films are all markers that the person interacting with them is different or niche. Some people like this, they want others to think they’re different, or better for not following the herd. Others, tend to stick to the popular stuff, just so they aren’t seen as different from their peers. But my question is why? Why do people want to keep their taste in different media private? Honestly, even when I came up with the idea to write this article and starting writing it, I’ve realized that niche has become such a buzzword for people who want to seem cooler or different than others, but they’re really just doing something that not a lot of people like. But different doesn’t equal cooler.
Wanting to be different isn’t a bad thing. I just think that it can be a little overdone. People yearn to be different, to reject the norm. This is very similar to the beatniks of the 50’s and 60’s and the hippies/hipsters of the 90’s and the 2000’s (a lot of time hipsters are really just cringy millennials). These were people who listened to alternative music , moving away from the pop and rock popular at the time. One example of a hipster is Tom Hansen from 500 Days of Summer played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. They wore different clothes, talked differently, and were overall just different. The “normies” would consider them weird and make fun of them, but a hipster’s whole image was that they were cool because they were different.
The difference between hipsters and what we have now, is that a lot of the people now are posers. They might listen to music on vinyl or in
wired headphones because they think it’ll make them look cool, when they would actually rather just listen to their music in their airpods. This is seen a lot in the “performative male”. In an article from Forbes Magazine, journalist Kian Bakhtiari says, “The defining characteristic of the performative male is that his choices are less about a genuine interest in music, clothes, books and food and more about external validation. A heavily curated and constructed appearance of what other people might find admirable.” So many of people now crave extreme external validation from others, which is totally normal, its human, but it gets to a point. When you start to do everything for validation, you are no longer you, you become a carbon copy person every everyone else.
A lot of these people who are trying to be ‘niche’ have become copy and pastes of each other because they are all trying to be different by doing the same things. A few things or activities that have become a marker of “being niche” recently is vinyl music, thrifting clothes, different music, foreign films, and hating every popular song to name a few. And yes, not everyone who does these things is trying to be different, but a lot are. I even find myself doing this sometimes. Specifically in a music sense, when asked what music I like Ill say some of the bands/artists I like that aren’t as popular because I don’t want to seem like I’m following a trend like everyone else. I love Taylor Swift, but I don’t always say that I like her because I don’t want to be associated with a certain type of person who is a Taylor Swift superfan (even though I was a ginormous Swiftie until high school, when I started to branch out with my music taste).
I think this topic is so heavily pushed on women specifically.
If you haven’t watched the Cool Girl monologue from Gone Girl, I definitely recommend. Rosamund Pike’s character Amy describes how men always want a “cool girl” who doesn’t actually exist. She’s pretending to be cool so he’ll want her. She’s “different” and “quirky” and “not like other girls” and thats why he likes her.
“He loved a girl who doesn’t exist. A girl I was pretending to be. The Cool Girl. Men always use that as the defining compliment, right? She’s a cool girl…Hot and understanding. Cool girls never get angry at their men, they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner. Go ahead! Sh*t on me, I don’t mind, I’m the cool girl. I waited patiently-years-for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, organize scrapbook parties and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, yeah, he’s a cool guy.Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon every girl was Cool Girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you.But it’s tempting, to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to be the girl every guy wants” (Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn).
As we’ve seen throughout literally all of histroy, women are supposed to be everything: A mother, a cook, a cleaning lady, a business woman, run the house, a boss but not bossy, smart but not too smart, funny but not so funny you make men feel threatened, be a good mom but also have your own life while also having a good job and if you favor one over the other two then your automatically a horrible person. Even though the “trad wife” idea has lessened over the last few years with the rise of progressive women not having babies and not getting married, society still holds women to the high standards, standards that they don’t hold men to. So even if you’re a woman who decides not to have a baby, you are still held to one big standard, how cool you are. So you can’t even blame people, and specifically women who try to be different and cool because its almost forced on them by society.
In Darien specifically, most people are the same. Lots of peoples parents grew up here and are raised to become the same suburban, WASP-y people that their parents are. So when I hear kids talk about wanting to be niche, I understand it. Because even I want to become a different person than the standard, white, lacrosse playing, Darien kid. People yearn to be different in a town where everyone is the same. And maybe sometimes they go about it the wrong way, but its understandable because not everyone wants to be a clone.
I sent out a little survey to DHS students on how they feel about being different and the results didn’t surprise me at all. When I first looked at them, I was a little shocked, but then remembered the kind of people that live in Darien and it made a lot more sense. Out of 106 responses, only 14 said that they wanted to be different from their peers. Also, 79 out of 106 said that they always or sometimes actively try to be seen as “normal” in comparison to their peers and they don’t want to stick out. So obviously, the kids who want to be different are the minority (unless they wanted to be different and not answer the poll), but these kids are still here.
Overall, I think being different is important, if everyone looked and acted the same, everything would be so boring. Especially in spaces where there is a lot of commonality between people, being and acting different should be encouraged. However, you should be different just because you want to seem cool. Be weird because you want to!
