Gossip, stereotypes and I go way back. I really got to know the two during my freshman year of high school. On my second day at my tiny (think 250-kids-in-the-whole-school tiny) boarding school, I overheard my roommate telling a large group of girls how I was "boring," "trashy" and "super self-obsessed" apparently I had been "looking at myself in the mirror for literally 20 minutes."
Don't worry though, there was an explanation: I couldn't help myself. In the words of my roommate, "I mean, she is from Marin." (The county I'm from apparently the genesis of all my problems was, in this case, uttered in the same manner in which most people talk about contagious diseases or insect infestations. That is to say, with more than a hint of distaste.)
Maybe it was my own fault I mean, I was standing in the hall listening to them talk about what was apparently my favorite subject matter. Maybe I unconsciously derived some sort of perverse pleasure from listening to gossip that was, in the words of an old Limited Too tank top I bought in second grade, "all about me!"
But I don't think so. All I remember from that day was standing alone in this new school that wasn't home, racking my overwhelmed brain for a place I could run to, somewhere private on that confusing campus where I could cry, feeling very young, very lost and very alone. Looking back, those girls probably should've added "dramatic" to my list of flaws.
And while nobody really cares about high school anymore, the same things happen here too. When we arrive as freshmen, we are suddenly offered an array of interesting activities. We sign ourselves up for extracurriculars but it is only afterwards that we learn that by doing so, we've already begun to put ourselves into categories. This oddity is encapsulated in one overheard uttered by a confused '14 a few weeks ago: "I'm just in an a capella group, and DREAM, and I work at the library. Explain to me how that's facetimey."
The beauty of stereotyping is its versatility Dartmouth is wholeheartedly indiscriminate in what ways we choose to judge people. Freshman year we're categorized by the towns we hail from, and later on we're judged by where (or if) we're affiliated. And it doesn't stop there. A friend casually explained to me over lunch that we're even judged by how much work we do if you tell someone you're not doing any, you're lazy or making a total self-call. But if you're busy working, you're being lame missing out on extracurricular activities, meals with friends or going out.
And just as in high school, realizing the implications of your stereotypes is never fun. Maybe you see your fraternity on Bored@Baker with double-digit disagrees, or maybe a good conversation promptly ends when someone discovers you're a '14.
I was having coffee with friends at the beginning of Fall term when one girl asked the other if she shaved. The second, a little taken aback, said yes, she did, showing her underarms as proof.
"But you're the only one with your name from San Francisco, right? Some rando in my gov class told me you didn't shave."
When the misinformed girl confronted the rando, it turned out her knowledge was based on the fact that her friend was a self-described "San Francisco hippie."
Unlike in high school, I don't believe our stereotypes or even our gossip (to an extent), are intentionally malicious at Dartmouth. I think it's our weird, twisted way of trying to feel more connected to each other. Think about it everyone here is ridiculously overscheduled, and we spend most of our time running from class to the library to meetings to office hours to our job to practice the list goes on. But I'd say a good portion of us are pretty social people, and keeping up with that schedule and trying to get to know any of the plethora of people we come in contact with, especially to a meaningful degree, is really hard. So we get lazy. We want to make those connections, but we don't have time to do lunch, dinner, even coffee with all the people we'd like to get to know. So we pick out what's most memorable about a person and, when prompted, relay that back to someone else, whatever connotation it might have.
Gossip often starts when someone whose name you don't recognize pops up in a conversation. Your friend tries to describe the person: "Kate/Jane/Rihanna," we say, "she's that '12 Alpha Phi/club volleyball player/redhead who studies on Berry 3," which promptly devolves into potentially confused stories about someone who fits the same basic description as the person you're talking about. It's funny because often it's our attempt to piece someone together that can unintentionally tear them down. So why do we do it? Because if you don't know someone, the answer, "you know, that really friendly, smart brunette," could be used to describe about half of the girls here.
Stereotyping has become vitally important to the Dartmouth culture. We have the mentality that "there's not enough time for me to get to know you, so whatever I can find out about you is now who you are." With nothing else to go off of, your sports team (or lack thereof), your hobbies, your classes, your class year, even the amount of time you spend outdoors or where you study become what defines you.
There are also people who rely on gossiping and stereotyping to help them navigate Dartmouth's social scene. Instead of trying something because they find the idea or activity interesting, they join organizations because of their stereotype or reputation. It's easy to believe that acquiring a certain brand name a specific club or Greek label will change how people see you, give you different rules to act on or a different identity. Or maybe publicly eschewing a label will show people that you're independent, different and interesting.
And Dartmouth makes it easy, with the help of a little site called Bored@Baker. Arguably the real-time zeitgeist of our campus, Bored@Baker is full of pejorative posts like "Ok to round AD to modern day brothel?" Nobody takes everything said at face value, but (for those not being shat on) it's funny, which makes it easy to confuse stereotypes with the truth. But Bored@Baker's bigger (and scarier) appeal is that it can provide answers whether accurate or not to the questions most people would never ask in real life. Some begin to confuse the word vomit on Bored@Baker with a semi-legitimate source of information.
Perhaps in the end, as hurtful as they may be, these particular bad habits strengthen us. Words are often more than words. They have power and they can tear you down. But whether it's your class year, your house, your race, your gender or your "trashy" hometown ultimately, if you believe in your self-worth, other people's opinions don't really matter.
I'm reminded of this on a walk with a friend, as I complain about stereotyping at Dartmouth."You're taking it all too seriously. Take me for example," she says, laughing while lighting up a cigarette. "I'm a TriDelt. Maybe I'm not supposed' to, but I'll smoke if I want to."
