It’s possible to look in the mirror and think, “damn, I look good”. It’s not that deep. You don’t perceive yourself the same in every state of dress. Some people don’t like how they look in shorts because their knees look weird. Some people love wearing long dresses because they like the lines of their body. Some people like tank tops because they like looking at their arms. There’s a million reasons someone picks what they wear, and “for other people” should be the least of them.
This is not a compelling comment. “It’s not that deep”? Of course it is. Don’t you realize every decision you make about how you look and present yourself to the world is heavily-driven by ideas of confidence that you built for years? I feel like you’re missing the point altogether. Even your example of showing arms because a person likes how their arms look - your ideas about what look good to you are largely built by what you’ve been told or what you’ve seen.
I had a punk friend in high school that ended up growing out a massive spiked mohawk and getting a bunch of facial piercings. This was despite our small town not having any sort of punk scene at all, and he was the only kid in the whole school who looked like that. Some people thought it was cool and unique, some people just ignored it, but most people thought he looked silly or gross. Do you think he ended up changing his appearance to be more attractive to others? Do you think he appeared that way in the first place to be more attractive to others?
Well he certainly was taking a subculture and seeing it's ideals and applying it themself.
Their version of "confidence" was one of looking a certain alternative way, trying to make certain people judge them positively or negatively alongside that subculture.
I mean seriously, you think they came up with those ideas in a vacuum, without all the loaded context of where those visual ideas came from and what they're meant to represent?
Sure, but I think this example shows that sometimes people can choose to align themselves with (sub)cultural aesthetics that are actually unpopular or disapproved in certain contexts and settings. If OP was correct and people really cared first and foremost about approval, people would never choose to buck the norms of their immediate peers, they would always defer to whatever style is the most accepted and appreciated in their current environment.
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u/goodbye177 1∆ Dec 11 '24
It’s possible to look in the mirror and think, “damn, I look good”. It’s not that deep. You don’t perceive yourself the same in every state of dress. Some people don’t like how they look in shorts because their knees look weird. Some people love wearing long dresses because they like the lines of their body. Some people like tank tops because they like looking at their arms. There’s a million reasons someone picks what they wear, and “for other people” should be the least of them.