Too little time, too many choices, most of them wrong.
- My friend Jessica, on Prussian Blue, these lovely white supremacist twin girls, Lynx and Lamb, who tour with their mother, singing racist tunes
Tags: culture, jessica, music, prussian blue, racism, white supremacy
What started purely as a whim that I was toying with has become something far more interesting to me. When I decided to get my cartilage pierced, I began to think about how people perceive others — especially those who choose to alter their appearances in extreme ways for whatever reason.
For instance, there’s this girl at work who I don’t know, but she has blue hair. If you mention her to anyone they will know who you’re talking about, but no one I’ve talked to yet actually knows her personally, but because of this very distinguishing feature, almost anyone I talk to will know who I’m talking about.
I’ve always toyed with the idea of dying my hair blue just for fun, but I’ve never had the guts to do it, primarily because I haven’t worked anywhere where doing that would be acceptable. Now that I’m at Yahoo! and the work environment is far more casual and embracing, I finally feel that being slightly stranger than I already am is not outside of the social norm.
Hence, I have decided to launch my very first social experiment. This morning I came into work with my hair completely bleached, except for lovely bright blue highlighted spikes. I’m trying to find out a few very important things from this experiment:
* * *
1. Will people treat me differently? For instance, will I be less likely to be approached by a helpful salesperson in a retail store?
2. Will the people who constantly ask me for the time, directions, etc., stop doing so because I look more than slightly bizarre?
3. How will a person like myself who takes Paxil to treat social anxiety react to the unsoliciticed attention that abnormal physical traits can tend to attract?
* * *
Here are the three simple rules that I’m following:
1. No mentioning the blue hair to someone unless they mention it first. I’m trying to gauge reactions, and whether someone who knows me has the nerve to comment on it is a big indicator of how uncomfortable it makes them.
2. I will make a conscious effort to act no differently than usual. Because I can’t see the freaky blue spikes on top of my head, there is no reason for me to act any differently.
3. No cutting the blue off completely for at least 6 weeks. 
* * *
So far, I’ve gotten a few strange glances from people I know who smile nervously and say hello, neglecting to mention the Smurfish transformation I’ve undergone. I haven’t got much to report yet, but it should be interesting to see if changing my hair to blue is really going to affect my life in any philosophical way.
I suspect that it might just make people think I’m weird. I suppose I am.
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