Submitted By: Alahya Mckelvey
A deviant is defined as someone who's behavior violates "the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society." But who decides what is "deviant"? Better yet who decides who is "deviant"?? Does someone becomes a ''deviant" because that's what society labels them? And once they are labeled a "deviant", do they feel the need to act a certain way because that's how they are already seen? The Labeling Theory helps us to answer some of these questions. The Labeling Theory explains why some people are viewed as deviants and how one comes to accept being labeled as a deviant.
Lets take the Gothic subculture for instance; Goths are viewed as losers, outcasts, druggies, deadbeats, lost causes etc.. But why do we label them these things? Could it be because they're different from what we deem "normal"? Just because Goths look different from us, we label them deviant. They wear black, listen to heavy metal, have piercings and tattoos so they must be deviants. So what happens after a goth is labeled deviant? Some began to rebel against "normal society." The picture above shows a man wit tattoos and piercings all over his face and the caption states "Deviance: A way to make daddy Mad." The guy in the picture behavior is a clear violation of what's normal in society, and the caption leaves us to believe that he did this to his face to piss his father off. This picture is an example of the Labeling Theory. The man is seen as a "bad seed" so he decided to take that label and run with it.
A deviant is defined as someone who's behavior violates "the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society." But who decides what is "deviant"? Better yet who decides who is "deviant"?? Does someone becomes a ''deviant" because that's what society labels them? And once they are labeled a "deviant", do they feel the need to act a certain way because that's how they are already seen? The Labeling Theory helps us to answer some of these questions. The Labeling Theory explains why some people are viewed as deviants and how one comes to accept being labeled as a deviant.
Lets take the Gothic subculture for instance; Goths are viewed as losers, outcasts, druggies, deadbeats, lost causes etc.. But why do we label them these things? Could it be because they're different from what we deem "normal"? Just because Goths look different from us, we label them deviant. They wear black, listen to heavy metal, have piercings and tattoos so they must be deviants. So what happens after a goth is labeled deviant? Some began to rebel against "normal society." The picture above shows a man wit tattoos and piercings all over his face and the caption states "Deviance: A way to make daddy Mad." The guy in the picture behavior is a clear violation of what's normal in society, and the caption leaves us to believe that he did this to his face to piss his father off. This picture is an example of the Labeling Theory. The man is seen as a "bad seed" so he decided to take that label and run with it.
The above picture discredits some well believed myths about Goths. Because goths look different than us we label them deviant. But just because someone looks different doesn't mean they are different. Some are just are just like us.
The video above is Eminem "The way I Am". In the song he says "I am whoever you say i am, if i wasn't then why would you say I am?'' Eminem is accepting whatever label people give him. Maybe we shouldn't care what people say or think about us. Maybe we should take what people say about us and run with it. Or maybe we shouldn't label and judge people by how they look. Just because someone looks a certain way, doesn't make them deviant.
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