In a World of Labels, Is True Individuality Still Possible?

In this era, it seems no one is left without a social label. If you have brightly colored hair, you might be an "alt-girl." Love science? You're a "geek." Even the seemingly average person—the one with a beige trench coat, listening to mainstream music, and scrolling through social media on the latest phone—has been given a nickname: the "normie." And often, this word doesn't carry a positive connotation. Why has even being "normal" started to seem abnormal?

The term "normie" began circulating in online forums and niche groups in the 2010s, but by now, it has come to describe anyone considered bland, average, or faceless. The word quickly took on a negative undertone, becoming a shorthand for someone who lacks individuality. But if we dig deeper, this isn't just internet slang. It’s a mirror reflecting how our society perceives normality itself. And normality, strangely enough, is a political category.

The Making of "Normal"

The philosopher Michel Foucault, in his lectures on the "abnormal," argued that normality isn’t a natural state. Instead, it’s the product of social institutions: schools, the military, medicine, and psychiatry. These institutions normalize our behavior, constructing an invisible framework that separates the "normal" from the "deviant." We aren't born normal; we become so after passing through filters of approval. Get a good grade, and you're a normal student. Fit within a certain weight standard, and you have a normal body. Start a family before thirty, and you're living a normal life. Anything that falls outside these frames is considered a deviation.

The "normie" is the perfect embodiment of someone living within these frames. They adhere to widely accepted views, interests, and habits. More often than not, a normie is conservative in their lifestyle. They don't identify with a specific community or subculture, leading a conventional life. This person is the clear opposite of counter-culture representatives, and this very distinction was the initial reason for the term's emergence on imageboards. It was a way for people in niche communities to separate themselves from others they deemed "boring."

The Need to Be Different vs. The Comfort of Fitting In

The desire to stand out from the crowd is a completely natural human need, tied to our sense of self and authenticity. However, if our well-being heavily depends on how well we conform to a group, it might point to issues with self-esteem or even to conformism as a psychological defense.

Another theory suggests that the focus on individuality grew as living standards improved. As researcher Steven Pinker and others have noted, since the mid-20th century, our life expectancy has significantly increased. We have advanced medical technology, better access to healthy food, and more leisure time. Against this backdrop, the societal pendulum has swung toward individualism. For a long time, collectivism was dominant, where people saw themselves primarily as part of a society and only secondarily as individuals. Individualism is its counterpoint—the desire to stand out, to be authentic and self-sufficient.

Yet, even in our age of individualism, people love to gather in fandoms and feel part of a community. There is strength in numbers, a logic that both "normies" and evolution understand. This is where conformity comes in—an adaptation mechanism where an individual submits to the opinion of the majority. In many situations, it’s neither good nor bad; it simply exists and works effectively. Imagine a conventional person finding themselves in a group of dedicated fantasy role-players. They would likely feel like an outsider and try to find common ground, perhaps by mentioning they saw The Lord of the Rings as a child. This is conformity in action.

When Balance Becomes Boring

There was a time when being in the middle meant being balanced. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle described the ideal of virtue as a "golden mean" between two extremes. Generosity is the midpoint between wastefulness and stinginess; courage is the balance between cowardice and recklessness. What we might call "norminess" today would have been considered a virtue by Aristotle, as it implies calmness, equilibrium, and adequacy.

Now, these qualities are almost seen as flaws. The cultural focus has shifted from balance to uniqueness. We no longer admire the moderate; we seek out the brilliant and the bold. As a result, conformity has become the problem—not just adapting, but thoughtlessly adopting the majority's beliefs. The downside of such a strategy is that it becomes harder to think critically when the primary goal is to fit in. This can lead to a loss of individuality, often driven by the anxiety of being excluded. The "normie" is accused of this very thing: striving to be like everyone else to secure a place under the sun, choosing simple, trending values because they lack the strength to develop their own.

The Illusion of Categories

We live in a world of labels, but the very division into "normies" and "non-normies" is far from perfect. It seems there's another distinguishing feature: the absence of mental health struggles. This might sound wonderful, but it has become another reason for "normies" to be dismissed, as if they haven't experienced the "real world." The condemnation of the healthy is the flip side of the destigmatization of mental disorders. Awareness about mental health is crucial to remove fear and mystery, not to elevate struggles into a cult or a marker of distinction.

As long as society is divided into "alt-girls" and "pick-mes," "normies" and "non-conformists," the chasm between us will only deepen.

As the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman wrote, we live in an age of "liquid modernity," a world where all identities are fluid. We no longer inherit our roles from our parents or fit into a predefined system. We reinvent ourselves again and again. While this offers freedom, it also creates anxiety. Did I choose the right version of myself? To cope, people cling to labels. "I'm a boomer," "I'm an alt-girl," "I'm ironically a pick-me." These words don't just describe; they create an identity, helping us feel like a part of something while simultaneously separating "us" from "them."

The Mind's Dangerous Shortcuts

Calling someone a "normie" is to fall victim to a cognitive bias known as "labeling." Our brains use these shortcuts for quick adaptation. For an ancient human, seeing a track that looked like a tiger's would trigger a prediction of danger. The label "tigers are dangerous" would follow, and the safe choice was to walk away. Modern people don't face tigers, but we constantly encounter different worldviews. For the brain, the logic is similar. The mere possibility of rejection is enough to create distance.

This strategy of labeling has serious consequences, including stigmatization. The experience of Jane Elliott, an American teacher, in 1968 is a chilling reminder. She told her class that blue-eyed people were superior to brown-eyed people. The blue-eyed students were given privileges, while the brown-eyed students were marked with special collars. In just a few days, the blue-eyed children began to bully their classmates, whose academic performance plummeted. This unethical experiment showed how little it takes to fuel prejudice, based on any difference, even an invented one. Today, we don't use collars, but we use clothes and tastes to label from afar. Pink hair means "alt-girl"; a beige trench coat means "normie."

Seeing the Person, Not the Label

Philosophers insist that labels distort and dehumanize. Emmanuel Levinas argued that true ethics begins when you encounter the "face of the other"—not a category, not a role, but a living person. The philosopher Martin Buber distinguished between two types of relationships: "I-Thou" and "I-It." The "I-Thou" relationship is a genuine, living dialogue. The problem is that it’s hard to maintain. Our society, especially the digital world, is geared toward "I-It" interactions, where you are not a person but content, a user, a data point.

We are all prone to cognitive biases. The "false consensus effect" makes us believe that most people agree with us. The "false uniqueness effect" makes us think our abilities are special and rare. These are just quirks of our thinking, but they can fuel division and hatred, just like stereotypes.

So, is a life without labels a utopia? Perhaps. But as the Stoics or Buddhists might say, the goal isn't to change the world but to avoid becoming like it. We may not be able to reshape all of society, but we can stop dividing the people around us into categories. That, in itself, is a form of resistance—small, but real. What if we started by looking past the label and trying to see the person standing before us?

References

• Foucault, M. (2003). Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-1975. Verso.

  This collection of lectures directly supports the article's discussion of how "normality" is not a natural state but a social construct. Foucault meticulously examines the historical development of institutions (like prisons, clinics, and asylums) and their role in defining and enforcing norms of behavior, distinguishing the "normal" from the "abnormal." The core argument of the first section of the article is deeply rooted in Foucault's analysis presented here.

• Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Polity Press.

  This book provides the theoretical framework for the article's section on "The New Tribalism." Bauman argues that contemporary society has moved from a "solid" to a "liquid" phase of modernity, where identities are no longer fixed or stable. This creates a sense of uncertainty and anxiety, leading individuals to grasp onto transient and fluctuating group identities (like subcultures or online tribes) for a sense of belonging, which perfectly explains the rise of labels like "normie."

• Ross, L. (1977). The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-220). Academic Press.

  This seminal chapter in social psychology introduces the concept of the "fundamental attribution error," which the article touches upon when explaining how we judge others' behavior based on character rather than circumstance. Ross's work provides the academic backbone for understanding why we are so quick to apply labels ("He is a normie") based on perceived internal traits, rather than considering the complex situational factors that shape a person's life and choices.