Stealing Money from the Rich by Powers of Seduction?
An Investigation into Rebellion (and its Contradictions) by Means of a Unique College Application Essay
By: Lily Johns
A couple of months ago, my sister, Alice, and I were talking about our college essays that we had written for admissions and proceeded to (quite strangely, I think) reread them. Mine was about an experience that I had had abroad in Greece and how it changed me as a person, yada-yada-yada. But Alice’s was an elaborate narrative about her newfound ‘ten-year plan’ in which she was going to marry into the top 1%, steal their money, and redistribute it to everyone else. I had somehow forgotten that she had written this unique college essay in her senior year of high school, and was literally crying laughing on the couch in our family’s living room at the prospect that she had sent this essay into her schools of choice.
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While I love this essay and think that it's a testament to my sister’s wit, humour, and skills as a writer, I also started to wonder what led to her 1) writing this essay and 2) sending it into colleges as a part of her application. Also, if I had read this essay without knowing that Alice had written it, or that she had written it amidst the difficult year she was having, would I have had the same positive impressions? So, with this project, I want to use Alice’s college essay as a jumping off point for a further investigation of rebellion in our daily lives; how we perceive it and how we perceive those who do it.
The Essay
Introduction: The Ten-Year Plan
Most people don’t want to go back and read their college admissions essays, but I honestly think my sister’s may in fact be an important cultural artifact. My sister, Alice, wrote her Common Application essay amid a very stressful year of school and of life and, with all the stress catching up, decided to write her essay about a very interesting topic: her so-called ‘ten-year plan’. This ten-year plan is a ploy to marry into the one percent in order to steal and consequently redistribute the money to solve social problems. After describing the ways in which she would infiltrate the 1% through marriage, specifically “using all [her] powers of seduction”, my sister listed current issues that she would want to alleviate with this new (stolen by way of seduction) capital. Among these issues are the Flint water crisis, world hunger, and climate change. She “might even mess around and fix public schools” too. And knowing my sister, this isn’t an exhaustive list if this ten-year plan were to come to fruition.
Before delving completely into this ten-year plan the consequent (dramatic) events that would occur, Alice gave the reader a bit of context as to why she chose to write her essay about this topic. She starts by saying that she originally wrote about a traumatic experience and the lessons that she learned from it, etc. Typical college application essay stuff. However, she follows this by saying that it didn’t feel honest, writing “I was using something bad that had happened to me and my family to help me get into college, which didn’t sit right with me”. Instead, she pivoted and wrote a narrative-like essay (there’s even dialogue!) about this ten-year plan with the hopes that “[the reader] will learn more about me from that than any other tragic story I could tell you”.
Following stealing and redistributing the money from the 1%, Alice describes the second portion of her ten year plan: her life after fame, so-to-speak. Instead of remaining in society as a public figure (assuming she would be after all of this), she aims to become an ‘urban legend’ by disappearing into the woods. However, she won’t be exiting from the public eye without leaving her mark-- she will publish a memoir in which there are an “intricate set of clues” to her whereabouts for a dedicated and attentive reader to find. One of these readers, Alice writes, will use the clues to find the way to her location: a farm in the woods. When the reader finds Alice, who lives there with her family (including her current spouse, who was her chauffeur during her escapades with the 1%), she will walk about of the farm house holding a basket of freshly baked bread (this was clearly an important detail for my sister to include). After a brief conversation with the reader, Alice and the farmhouse disappear. She and her family later move to the city with her family, where some people recognize her, to which she responds “I get that all the time”.
After all of this rich description of the ten-year plan, my sister ends the essay with: “Or maybe I’ll just go to college”, leaving the reader wondering which path she will pursue.
As can be inferred from this description of Alice’s Common Application essay, my sister did not take the well-traveled route to writing this kind of a thing. Not many people would look at a college essay prompt and think to write a humorous narrative about wealth redistribution through marrying and deceiving the rich (and stealing their money, might I add), much less follow through with it. Even more, her candid thoughts about the college application process at the beginning as a way to situate her reader into why she chose to write about this topic was directly going against what’s normal for this type of endeavor, even if it was from a genuine and reflective place. So from a general perspective, writing this kind of an essay, and sending it to a higher education institution, would be a daunting, and risky, task. I certainly would have never thought of submitting anything like this during my college application process.
After re-reading Alice’s college essay recently, I became curious about what circumstances led her to write and submit a piece like this. Was she stressed and fed up with school? Did she want to make a point?
I have also become curious about my own reaction to this essay. As is probably evident from my analysis of it thus far, I think it is clever, hilarious, and speaks to the things that I love about my sister. However, if I were in a different position would I have the same reaction? If her ten-year plan was different, would I still find it funny? Also, even though I love to read this essay, would I ever want to submit something like this to an academic institution?
Asking these questions made me realize that the ways in which we as people perceive rebellion is complicated, and often contradictory. So, in this essay, I want to explore this phenomenon of incoherence in how we view rebellion and nonconformity; how and why it occurs, and in what situations does it differ. To do this, I will use social psychology and sociology theory as well as political and cultural examples of the phenomenon.
Theory: What is Productive Nonconformity?
In order to discuss social psychology and sociology theory, it is important to first understand the key definitions that are used in the literature. Primarily, scholars use the term ‘productive nonconformity’ to describe basically what I have been referring to so far as ‘rebellion’ and ‘deviance’. Essentially, this term attempts to define the phenomenon in which individuals, like my sister, act in a way that defies the ‘prevailing social norms’ in a positive or productive way. These norms can be related to anything from ways that you interact with others through the way you talk, act, or dress, to things you create such as fashion, literature, or art. Also, it often encompasses forms of deviance such as protesting or engaging in rebellious behavior as a way to work towards social change.
Then, sociologists and psychologists have examined the factors that influence productive nonconformity. For example, what makes an action positive or productive? For this question, researchers use the term ‘task accomplishment’ to describe how and when an action qualifies as productive nonconformity. Basically, the idea of task accomplishment is based on the notion that individual actions have the ability to contribute positively to universal goals in a society. And that, in some cases, contributing positively to a shared goal requires deviating from the status quo. This is definitely open to interpretation, but these ‘tasks’ can mean anything from achieving a goal at work, advocating for a social justice issue, or challenging harmful social norms related to identity.
Next, what factors lead a person to defy social norms in this way? How are they ‘different’ from other people? Well, sociology and social psychology scholars explored this question and came up with the terms of ‘task-oriented’ vs ‘position-oriented’ attributes. While a bit abstract, being task-oriented connects to the earlier definition of ‘task accomplishment’ and mainly means that you consider the task at hand to be more important than any repercussions to their social position that they could experience as a result of your rebellion. On the other hand, if you are ‘position-oriented’, you are ultimately more concerned with your social position than the task at hand, which inhibits you from rebelling to achieve an end and positively contribute to the collective.
All of these terms and abstract concepts go to show that individual decisions to go against societal norms can actually reflect positively on society, and that this has a sociological and scholarly foundation. However, just because this phenomenon has a scholarly foundation does not necessarily translate into our systematic view of rebellion and deviance. Actually, the more you look closely at different examples of rebellion in our daily lives, the more complicated our perceptions seem to be.
Examples: Gender Expression & The Harry Styles 'Paradigm'
Gender expression is a key lens by which to examine deviance and rebellion. Deviation from gender norms is undoubtedly a risk in today’s society due to our often rigid constructions of gender and the way in which gender should be expressed. While so many people are making strides by expressing themselves how they want contrary to societal expectations, I want to focus on gender expression in public figures, or celebrities in this discussion. Specifically, that some celebrities are praised for gender nonconformity over others.
Harry Styles has consistently been praised in the media for his experimentation with clothing that challenges common conceptualizations of masculinity. A Guardian article even entitled him as the “face of gender-neutral fashion” due to his fashion choices in editorials and on red carpets. People often attribute this title to is his recent Vogue cover (see below), where he is pictured wearing a dress.
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While this is certainly a bold form of gender and creative expression on Styles’ part, the media’s absolute focus on him, a white, cisgender, man is astronomically misleading. Rather than providing a balanced portrayal of nonconformity through gender expression today, it clouds and diminishes all of the statements made by people of color and figures of the LGBTQ+ community.
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For instance, Korean group BTS has a history of defying common conceptualizations of gender through fashion choices in editorials, music videos, promotional content, and individual style.
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Editorials: In their 2017 Singles photoshoot, BTS modeled in multiple items of clothing typically worn by women, including fishnets, skirts, chokers, and corsets.
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Music Videos: In their 2020 music video for Black Swan off their album Map of the Soul: 7, members Jimin and Jungkook wore corsets as part of their outfits.
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Promotional/Album content: In an album photoshoot for their 2021 single Butter, Jimin wore a pleated skirt and fur boots.
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Individual style choice: In 2020 and 2021, BTS’s Jungkook wore and promoted this gender-less small clothing brand, boosting its brand reputation dramatically. BTS members have also been known to wear designer clothing marketed to women.
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Therefore, in elevating Harry Styles as the pinnacle of gender-neutral fashion, the media is undermining the contributions that BTS and other Asian artists have made in challenging gender norms through fashion and self-expression. The focus on Harry Styles also distracts from the progress that LGBTQ+ artists and other people of color have made in terms of nonconformity gender presentation. Primarily, singer-songwriter/rapperLil Nas X has made significant strides in challenging traditional constructions of gender and sexuality, such as wearing skirts and dresses to red carpets or promotional activities.
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However, instead of being praised like Harry Styles, Lil Nas X is often labeled as too ‘over-the-top’ and too focused on creating a certain image.
So, through these examples we can see that when assessing gender expression as a form of productive nonconformity, the ways in which we view different public figures contrasts, especially through media representation. Even more, it differs based on our social constructions of race, national origin, and sexuality. It is unlikely a coincidence that Harry Styles, a white, cisgender man, is praised and commemorated over other artists of color such as BTS and Lil Nas X. Through this lens of gender expression per media representation of different public figures, we can observe that how view rebellion, in this case, definitely depends on our other social constructions of identity in a way that seems to be pretty discriminatory and limited.
Examples: American Political Rhetoric around Socialism(?) & the Nature of Public Response: Bernie Sanders vs AOC
Moving along with this idea of public figures and how they are viewed differently in their statements of rebellion, I also want to talk more about political figures. More specifically, how different types of ‘anti-capitalist’ or ‘socialist’ statements are perceived by the public and the American media.
When I think about the current conversations about socialism in American politics, or at least moving farther away from fully-fledged and fiery capitalism of the current America, I often think about Bernie Sanders. While the extent to which Bernie Sanders and the policies that he proposes align with socialism is certainly up for debate (I mean, are the Scandinavian countries even Socialist?), Sanders is certainly known in the American media and among the American public for preaching more socialist and anti-capitalist rhetoric as an integral part of his platform. And since, for an awful long time, discussions of socialism and American politics have been greatly at odds (to say the least), Sanders’ elevation of this topic on his established political platform is rebellious in nature. Although, it can certainly be stated that much of the rhetoric that Sanders uses and the statements that he makes are to achieve political ends.
Largely because of this ‘anti-capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ rhetoric that Bernie Sanders employs, he is generally known among progressives as being a champion of speaking out for reforms that America needs to make to its political and economic systems to better serve its people. In my own experience, I have seen Sanders praised and quoted on social media for statements that call for different environmental, healthcare, or economic reforms that the progressive side of the spectrum broadly advocates for. However, I have not seen this same type of response applied to other political figures that occupy a similar rebellious space in American politics.
Specifically, I am thinking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) from New York. Like I said, AOC and Sanders occupy a sort of similar political space in the American political sphere, which I would roughly describe as progressives that advocate for social support policies that are often spun as socialist reforms by the American media, however, I don’t think that they are always held to the same standards.
The main example that I am thinking of is what I would describe as the AOC MET Gala incident. Basically, AOC attended this year's MET Gala and wore a designer dress with the words ‘Tax the Rich’ written on the back.
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Rather than receiving praise or recognition for this ‘anti-capitalist’ statement on such a big stage, AOC released a lot of backlash for promoting such a statement in an expensive designer dress at an event that is essentially for the elites. While, personally, I certainly agree with the criticisms of this dress to some extent, I am not sure if others would have received the same response. I don’t think that Bernie Sanders will attend a MET Gala anytime soon (although, you never know), but if he did and made a similar statement, would the reactions be similar?
I read a New York Times article that talked about how AOC is held to higher standards in comparison to others and that her perceived lack of commitment to related policy changes led to the backlash from this outfit. I understand this to a certain extent as well, but isn’t that similar to many of Bernie Sanders tactics? Most politicians prescribe themselves a certain rhetoric to achieve their goals, which may lead to related reforms in the future but short-term goals in the present. So why is AOC held to this higher standard among progressives? Is it because she is younger, or more vocal and established in the media? Or is it because she is a woman? I guess I am not sure, but I would wager that it is because of all of these reasons and maybe more.
None of this is to undermine the work that Sanders or AOC are doing or the statements that they are making, but I think it’s interesting to examine how they are viewed differently, especially by (the broadly defined) progressives. Both are situated in a similar place of rebellion within American politics, but their statements often garner contrasting responses from the public. So, I guess, this is another example of how the ways in which we view rebellion and deviance tend to be contradictory, but this time with a focus on the political sphere.
Examples: Perceived Power, Clothing, & the Red Shoes Effect
As we can see with the Harry Styles ‘Paradigm’ and the AOC MET Gala dress, choosing to rebel through fashion can leave remarkably different impressions on people depending on different aspects of your identity, such as how you look, where you are from, and even how others already perceive you. However, in certain situations (and for certain people) making ‘out of the box’ clothing choices can actually give you an edge over others. Take the Red Sneakers Effect for an example.
In 2014, researchers from the Harvard Business School coined the term ‘Red Sneakers Effect’ to describe a phenomenon that they observed where nonconformity through clothing and attire led to increased perceptions of status, power, and competence. The token example of this is when Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, wore a sweatshirt to an important meeting with Wall Street bankers and investors before Facebook’s initial public offering. Imagine a young Zuckerberg standing in front of a room of highly professional and professionally dressed elite businessmen. With this image in mind, why would Zuckerberg choose to present himself in such a way? Does this give him some sort of advantage?
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Well, the Red Sneakers Effect indicates that it would. Rather than Zuckerberg’s extremely casual attire resulting in disdain or exclusion from others, to many, it signaled a sort of confidence and competence that positively differentiated him and his work. In other words, he was perceived as having more power and competence as a result of his nonconformity.
This can also apply to power in terms of social status. The same researchers studied shop-assistants in high-end boutiques in Milan, Italy in order to gauge whether or not this applied to a different, non-business executive setting. In brief, they found that it did. Shop-assistants tended to view customers wearing gym clothes more likely to make a purchase than those wearing elegant dresses or other high-end attire.
A lot of this perception of power, however, has to do with perception of intention. They studied people at a country club and evaluated their perceptions of a person who wore a red bow tie to a black-tie party. Basically, if the participants were told that this person made a deliberate choice to wear a red bow tie to the event, this individual was seen as a member of higher status in the club. But if they were told that they did not deliberately wear a red bow tie to the black-tie party as a choice, the participants no longer associated this person with increased status. But why is this the case? What does intention mean in the scheme of this discussion?
It may have to do with the perceived autonomy of a person. For the red bow tie example, because this person is wearing a red bow tie rather than a black tie, and if you are told that they are doing this intentionally, you will likely infer that their choice reflects increased status as they are able to deviate from the norm without apprehension of being excluded. This increases your own perception of them as a figure of greater autonomy, and thereby of greater power.
However, as you may have already guessed, this Red Sneakers Effect only applies to certain types of settings. Per the examples--a Wall Street meeting, a country club, a high-end store in Milan--this phenomenon occurs in settings where there are strong rules of dress and conduct that people are expected to conform to. Also, where power, autonomy, and competence are greatly valued and judged.
Even more, quite unsurprisingly, the Red Sneakers Effect isn’t experienced equally by everyone, even in the given high-status settings. For example, the researchers cite that while a tenured professor could gain power by wearing red sneakers to a lecture, a doctoral student probably could not.
From the Red Sneakers Effect, we can see that some people who challenge societal norms through dress can be viewed positively and even perceived as more powerful and competent than those who conform. However, this only applies to those who are already in positions of power in powerful institutions, so I suppose that it says quite a bit about our society.
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Midway Conclusions (or lack thereof):
At this point in my investigation of positive nonconformity, I am not quite sure what to conclude. On one hand, there is the question of nonconforming gender expression and who gets the recognition, which, I think, relates a lot to the individual identities of those involved. For the second example, there’s the question of essentially political clout and who gets held to different standards in similar situations. And lastly, there’s this ‘red sneakers effect’, which pretty much dictates how nonconformity can be viewed positively, and can even give you power, in elite and inaccessible environments. Even though this red sneakers effect and supporting research is definitely interesting, it doesn’t really apply to other examples of rebellion, which I suppose adds to our overall contradictory views. When trying to find similarities between the examples that I have looked at, I struggle to find any that find traction throughout the different discussions. They do all seem to relate to the persons’ identities, however, the ways in which identities are involved is not consistent. I suppose a lot of the examples are related to clothing and fashion, so perhaps that is a factor to consider.
In order to attempt to find more connecting strands between my investigation so far, I decided to conduct a short interview with my sister to see what she thought about her essay, her experience writing the essay, and my project so far.
Interview transcript
Date & Time of conversation: 3:30 pm on December 16th, 2021
{Us talking about her semester next year}
Alice: Anyways, let's start the interview.
Lily: Yeah.
{now me actually starting the interview}
Lily: Okay. I have four questions, okay, very short. The first one I think you expect, but what led to you writing this essay and/or what motivated you to change what you were writing about, because I know you had like one that you started and then you switched it to the 10 year plan. I just want, like a little background.
Alice: I don’t know, I mean like I feel like, generally, I mean I was just stressed out, and I was sick of you know doing college stuff, because it was, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on up here in my senior year regarding more college essays and all that bs so oh no I mean I feel like the purpose of college essays, nowadays, at least, or I don't know how it was you know when they started being a thing, but it's just to like exploit your trauma to get you into college, which is like really messed up, and I didn't want to do that, and I was sick…
Alice: High School was hard and I was sick of everything that we were doing, I was like, screw this. I'm going to write something funny that also, like, showcases my values. Um, and, you know, gets the message I want across, so that's why I decided to do that essay, even though it's a little silly--I got accepted to almost all the colleges I applied to so I think it was [fair].
Lily: Yeah. Okay, cool. That's kind of what you talked about before so I kind of expected that answer, but
the next one, I'm kind of making these up as I go along, but, did you, even though you were really stressed out, did you like have any apprehensions about sending it or like did you think about what they're going to think about you not writing a typical one?
Alice: A little bit, but at the same time, like, I mean, even though what I was writing was, like, kind of silly, I think generally what I talked about in there they knew they probably knew that, hopefully knew, that I was being serious, mostly [Alice laughs], and, um, I don't know.
Alice: I feel like the things I talked about in there like issues like the Flint water crisis and, you know, minimum wage and the terrible American prison system or like values that are really important to me so I feel like I wouldn't want to go to a college that didn't want to admit a student who had those values so I, felt OK about it. And I’m going to a college that accepted me with that essay so I think that was a good choice.
Lily: No, it was a good choice and it's definitely even if, even if it's about, you know, an abstract, slightly silly thing it's clear what you're talking about has social implications and shows your values, like you said. I just my, my project is kind of about like what conditions lead people to do rebellious things so that's why I'm asking about like, if you're apprehensive or what you want it, not what you wanted to get out of it but will like what you know, kind of what you wanted to achieve.
Alice: Yeah, I think I was a little apprehensive about it. You know, it’s not the typical college essay and you know colleges might be like, what is this crazy person trying to say to us why would we ever admit a student who talked about seducing a billionaire or whatever I said..
Lily: You did say that, yeah. That is in my title.
Alice: [laughs]. No, it's fine.
Alice: But yeah, I did. So there was obviously some, some risk involved, but yeah I really just, I don't know. I mean, I just stopped caring, honestly, I was so drained, and I was so sick of you know like the American education system that I just wrote something. But it was like whatever, college isn't for everyone, maybe it wouldn't have been for me. Maybe it still isn't for me--who knows. Yeah, but I just took a risk and thankfully I did not suffer too much from it.
Lily: Yeah. And, third question. Well, okay. Yeah, third and then we have a fourth. Do you think any aspects of your identity as a person affected you being accepted? You know because, like, a lot of my project is about... how different positions that people are in can affect their ability to do things like this or like, not necessarily related to a college essay but clothing and other forms of expression. So, I don't know, I mean obviously it's difficult because you're applying--they didn't see you or talk to you or anything but...Yeah, I don't know what do you think…
Alice: So like, do you think my identity shaped me to do this, or to get accepted?
Lily: To get accepted. Or both, both...whichever.
Alice: To do this, I think, I mean, obviously like I grew up in a family that has repeatedly told me that college isn't always the answer….
Lily: Yeah.
Alice: So, taking a risk like that was obviously... I felt more secure about it because I knew, even if I didn't get accepted to any colleges my parents would have been okay with it, and we would have figured something out. So I think that's part of it and, I don't know, I mean... for getting accepted, I think, generally…. I mean the colleges [that] I didn't get accepted [to], I mean, one of them is like this really prestigious university in Washington DC, so I'm not super surprised that they didn't accept me because you know all the lawmakers you know making this country I may marry are I'm going there so it's fine.
Alice: [sighs]. Um, but, I mean I think most of the schools that I applied to that, like did except me were schools that had like similar values that I did so like the things that I talked about in there like I wasn't super worried that DePaul University, or, University of San Francisco or wherever--the places that I applied to--like, we're going to not accept me because of like the values that I spoke about because obviously they're really liberal schools so... I'm not like oh no, they're gonna hate me because I talked about how billionaires are bad, because they obviously agree with at least, to some extent.
Lily: Right.
Lily: Okay, that's good. Last question is just like more fun. Not fun but like… Did you enjoy writing it? Or did you enjoy reading it later? Like, remember when we were reading it, um, a couple months ago...
Alice: I do have, yes, I really did enjoy writing it, because it was funny and it was fun and I love showing it to people who are applying to really prestigious colleges and then being like having like a little internal nightmare about how I sent that to a college because they're crazy.
Lily: [laughs [awkwardly]]
Alice: Um, but yeah, I did, I did enjoy writing. It was fun. It was really like writing so it was fun to do something really creative that wasn't like sucking my soul away.
Lily: Yeah.
Alice: I definitely had fun reading it--I kind of forgot that I submitted it and then I was looking through my Google Drive and I read it again, but I was like, wow, I submitted this to seven institutions.
Lily: Yeah
Alice; Um, so, yes, I definitely had fun, I love reading it to people, still. I read it to some people at college, and they were like “Alice... How did you do this” and I'm like honestly, I don't know.
Alice: It was funny reading it to Dad because he was like, so shocked cause he didn't know--Mom and Dad never read that essay, so they were very surprised.
Lily: I must have read it but I had forgotten as well.
{proceed to talk about who had read it when, etc.}
[ends interview slightly early because Alice has to go to work]
The Evolution of my thought during this Interview:
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This information I pretty much knew, but it was helpful to be reminded of what drove her to write this kind of an essay.
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I think this part about showcasing her values is interesting. It could have implications for how other people decide to rebel through art or writing.
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This part is interesting because it shows that she considered her audience/the colleges that she was applying to when choosing to write the essay.
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Oops....
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This part is the most interesting because it shows how identity plays into this situation. Even if it has to do with family and not necessarily how you are perceived by others (race, gender, age, etc.), it shows that this played a role in Alice's logic for going through with this.
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Values. This is interesting. I think it could potentially apply to the examples that I have discussed, but not necessarily in the positive way that it is applied here. For instance, how do the values of those who are charged with judging nonconformity influence their perceptions?
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Again, this shows how people who are reading the essay have different reactions based on their own values.
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Nice.
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That's what I thought, too.
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Final Thoughts:
I suppose that, with the interview with my sister, I didn't unearth many more conclusions about rebellion and the many ways that we perceive it. But one thing I did find interesting was her ideas about values and how they shaped others' perceptions of her essay, which I think could have implications for all of the examples that I have looked at so far. Maybe not in a positive way, though. For instance, you could definitely say that one (subconsciously or consciously) values or privileges certain identities over others can shape how you judge statements of rebellion. With the example of gender expression, if you limit your sphere of influence to white, Western artists, you may certainly perceive Harry Styles' nonconformity as more pivotal and groundbreaking than it actually is. Or, if you inherently place more value on men who are well-established politicians, then you might find it easier to criticize AOC for her rebellious political statements.
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This could be an over-simplification of the dynamics that shape our perception of rebellion, but I think it's an important idea to take into consideration when we think about these dynamics. How do our identities and how we perceive the identities of others play into our perceptions of positive nonconformity? We may need more examples to make more conclusions.
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Despite some of the (thin) threads that tie these examples together, my exploration into this topic has illustrated how fragmented and contradictory our collective perception of rebellion tends to be. From both a political and cultural standpoint, and probably other spheres as well, we don't tend to apply much logic or consistency to how we judge people based on their nonconformity. Rather, it seems that how we judge positive nonconformity stems from how we privilege certain identities over others. In the case of my sister's college essay, even though the situation and outcome was markedly different from the other examples, many of these threads of identity and values remained.
So, thanks to my rediscovery of Alice's essay, I was able to further examine the conditions that lead to something like this being created. Specifically, what positive nonconformity is and how it manifests in different aspects of our everyday life. Especially, that its manifestations highlight how inconsistent we are in evaluating the phenomenon of rebellion. But, despite this inconsistency, I surely hope that more people can find the sweet spot in all of this chaos so that more essays like my sisters can be written.
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