Last night as you sat warped in front of 'Jenny Jones' a classic case of conformity played right before your eyes and chances are you didn't even realize it. A young teenager struts across the floor, wearing a basic Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt, and boot cut Tommy jeans. She spends a few moments whining over the way her friend dresses, baggy jeans and t-shirts with way too much makeup. Next, her friend, who has an artistically unique look, enters through the backdoors. She desperately defends herself saying that she is a distinct individual making a statement about who she is through her clothing. She is discouraged by her friends, family, and the audience who laugh and call her 'freak'. The conservatively dressed, Jenny Jones, saves the day, saying, "I have some of the best fashion designers in the business who will give this misunderstood misfit some real clothes." During the brief commercial break, the girl is converted into a clone, a fashionably wonderful clone. To live in our age and era, it is completely impossible to live and escape conformity. This silent epidemic affects society as a whole and almost every aspect of each individual.

Conformity is the tendency of an individual to change their thinking and behavior to the social norms. The most apparent effect of conformity is shown in fashion and style. I ponder whether the majority of our population like the clothes they wear because they actually like them, not just because everybody else is wearing them. I find it hard to believe that 9 out of 10 people just have to own at least 12 articles of clothing sporting the Nike Swoosh, because it is that irresistible. I am not proclaiming myself a nonconformist, as I know conformity affects everybody’s life in one way or another. There was a time in my life when I was rushing to the nearest toy store to purchase an over priced Cabbage Patch Kid, just because everyone else had one. However, there was also a time in my life when I realized conformity is suicide, a conspiracy against every person as an individual, against the content of every character, talent, thought, or quirk. There was a time in my life when just expressing myself would alienate me into shame because I had a 'different' idea to represent. My ideas and opinions eventually grew quiet, and later became silent. Then, there was the day I realized that nothing could be more sacred than that of my own thoughts. 'Good' and 'bad' are only names. The only thing that can be right is what I value, and the only things that can be wrong are what I hold against that. I know that the pressure to conform has affected my generation astronomically. We live in the age where all across the country people are eating the exact same Big Mac's, and shopping at the same Abercrombie & Fitch. The unique and independently owned businesses have been replaced by chain stores appearing in every city of every state. Blocks and blocks of identical houses line up in rows. Gap and Old Navy are mass-producing more copies than all the genetic engineers and at a speed Xerox machines could only dream of reaching. The pressure to conform is inevitable and hard to fight.

Conformity is pasted and thrown all over society. No single person can hide from it, or even deny that it has not affected their lives. Conformity may seem like a battle impossible to win. It is a battle that will kill a person’s character, and the only way one can save their self is through honest realization of its effects.

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