Three kids were waiting at a bus stop when a guy walked by with crazy red hair all spiked up and wearing black leather with rhinestone spikes. The kids all stared and started making fun of him but the man just turned around, gave them a look and kept walking. Later on in the week one of the kids had a doctors appointment. When they got to the doctors office there stood the guy with the red crazy hair from earlier on in the week. She couldn’t believe it! How could some goth jerk be a doctor?!?! Then the girl started thinking back to the day when they first saw him, the guy didn’t give them any trouble. They were the ones making fun of him for how he looked! She started to feel a little bad for judging him for how he looked before actually getting to know him.

Have you ever done this? How would it make you feel?

I was curious, so I asked 18 middle school students if they had ever judged someone for how they looked before actually getting to know them. Fifteen students admitted to doing it. One girl said this, “I think we sometimes have these stereotypes stuck in our mind and we compare people based on what they look like to those stereotypes”.

Over the years the media has influenced stereotyping in a big way. The media has a huge role in how we look and act. Before I looked into this topic, I thought media only influenced teens. After researching I found that the media, in fact, influences people of all ages. Just yesterday my three-year old sister pronounced, “Girls like pink and boys like blue..pink is pretty.” This exemplifies how at her young age she is already defining what’s considered pretty. Down the road this could lead to her judging girls who don’t dress “girlie” as not being pretty. On the opposite end of the age spectrum, my mom, who owns a salon, tells me that at least 60% of her female clientele color their hair to cover grey in an apparent effort to make themselves look younger. According to the media, young is beautiful so this makes sense,

At younger ages being accepted is always a main priority and children and teens will go to great lengths to do so. People try to be what they see on tv, read in magazines and watch on the big screen. This type of copying can lead to major drama and major judging. I believe that if everyone just laid off the judging before actually getting to know people there would be less drama in schools and everyone would feel more comfortable being themselves and not having to worry about people labeling them. It’s my hope that as a society we can break these stereotypes, accept people for who they are and not be so quick to judge.