4 ms·

I decided to get a mohawk (and dye it purple) last year. I also decided to wear nothing but business suits with tie and french cuff shirts when out in public du

I decided to get a mohawk (and dye it purple) last year. I also decided to wear nothing but business suits with tie and french cuff shirts when out in public during this period. The company I work for slapped pictures of me all over their Facebook feed a week after I made the change. I went to a developer conference and got mugged by a dutch film crew. I caught people using me as a landmark when the main conference hall got crowded. I popped up on instagram more often than the keynote speaker for the event. On several ocassions I had total strangers approach my table while dining out with my wife to tender complements. I'm not sure what my point is here other than I don't feel any pressure to conform to a given uniform and my intermittent refusal to do so hasn't seemed to impact my career so far.

deerpig 13y ago
Conformity and non-conformity are just two sides of the same coin, they are both marketing statements. Einstein was the opposite, he had 5 sets of the same suit so that he didn't have to waste time thinking about his wardrobe. He would rather spend his time thinking about important problems. A dyed mohawk and a suit, to me, is a lot of work and thought that I personally would rather spend on the work. There is nothing wrong with marketing oneself, it's part of being a a social animal. But when you market yourself you are making a statement to others that you want them to notice and to be noticed. It is spending time on marketing and not on ideas and the work. I would agree with Graham's definition of nerd. The fact that many people who like to think of themselves as nerds today, who actually aren't, doesn't change the kind of person he was describing.
- krakensden 13y ago
  > A dyed mohawk and a suit, to me, is a lot of work and thought that I personally would rather spend on the work. I did the purple mohawk thing for a while. The trick is to make the actual dying & haircutting a social event.
  - knieveltech 13y ago
    I think I missed that bus. The maintenance was what finally drove me to get rid of it.
- knieveltech 13y ago
  "dyed mohawk and a suit, to me, is a lot of work and thought that I personally would rather spend on the work." The mohawk was a lot of work to keep up. The suit? Not so much. Typically putting one on only added 5 minutes to my morning routine, and most of that was getting cufflinks in and deciding which tie to wear. In any case I'm not sure I agree with the assertion that this was a marketing statement. I telecommute so if this was merely signalling behaviour on my part it was a total waste of time as I'm sure the message was lost on my cats.
- vorg 13y ago
  > Einstein ... had 5 sets of the same suit so that he didn't have to waste time thinking about his wardrobe. So this has been done before! A word of warning if you're thinking of trying this... I went through a time where I'd buy 3 or 4 of the exact same T-shirt whenever I had to go shopping for clothes. Unfortunately, when I'm seen wearing the "same shirt" for a whole week, especially in summer, suits and nerds alike look at me like I never wash my clothes. I soon modified my behavior to always wear a different colored T-shirt from the previous day, and buy different colored ones whenever I need to buy more. So whatever else is said here about non-conformity in clothing, you're taking a risk if you extend the concept to 5 sets of the same suit or T-shirt.
kelnos 13y ago
I think it was because, for lack of a better word, you were "weird". It's not just the clothes, it's the entire look. Had you worn the same clothing, but had a "normal" haircut, you likely would have been perceived to be more like the business/non-tech type. The dyed mohawk gave you enough of a counter-culture look that, when paired with the suit, gave you an overall look completely unique from the informally-dressed nerds and the formally-dressed suits, and that's generally viewed positively by the nerd crowd. And it's also about the people around you. You'd presumably already established your personality and technical competence at your company before that, so while the change in look was of course a change, they already had context in which to appreciate the change. In that context, even if you hadn't changed your hairstyle, while you may have gotten some surprised looks and questions when you suddenly show up in a suit, your colleagues would still assume "the best" before believing you'd turned into a "suit" they don't trust anymore.

deerpig 13y ago

Conformity and non-conformity are just two sides of the same coin, they are both marketing statements. Einstein was the opposite, he had 5 sets of the same suit so that he didn't have to waste time thinking about his wardrobe. He would rather spend his time thinking about important problems. A dyed mohawk and a suit, to me, is a lot of work and thought that I personally would rather spend on the work. There is nothing wrong with marketing oneself, it's part of being a a social animal. But when you market yourself you are making a statement to others that you want them to notice and to be noticed. It is spending time on marketing and not on ideas and the work. I would agree with Graham's definition of nerd. The fact that many people who like to think of themselves as nerds today, who actually aren't, doesn't change the kind of person he was describing.

krakensden 13y ago
> A dyed mohawk and a suit, to me, is a lot of work and thought that I personally would rather spend on the work. I did the purple mohawk thing for a while. The trick is to make the actual dying & haircutting a social event.
- knieveltech 13y ago
  I think I missed that bus. The maintenance was what finally drove me to get rid of it.
knieveltech 13y ago
"dyed mohawk and a suit, to me, is a lot of work and thought that I personally would rather spend on the work." The mohawk was a lot of work to keep up. The suit? Not so much. Typically putting one on only added 5 minutes to my morning routine, and most of that was getting cufflinks in and deciding which tie to wear. In any case I'm not sure I agree with the assertion that this was a marketing statement. I telecommute so if this was merely signalling behaviour on my part it was a total waste of time as I'm sure the message was lost on my cats.
vorg 13y ago
> Einstein ... had 5 sets of the same suit so that he didn't have to waste time thinking about his wardrobe. So this has been done before! A word of warning if you're thinking of trying this... I went through a time where I'd buy 3 or 4 of the exact same T-shirt whenever I had to go shopping for clothes. Unfortunately, when I'm seen wearing the "same shirt" for a whole week, especially in summer, suits and nerds alike look at me like I never wash my clothes. I soon modified my behavior to always wear a different colored T-shirt from the previous day, and buy different colored ones whenever I need to buy more. So whatever else is said here about non-conformity in clothing, you're taking a risk if you extend the concept to 5 sets of the same suit or T-shirt.

kelnos 13y ago

I think it was because, for lack of a better word, you were "weird". It's not just the clothes, it's the entire look. Had you worn the same clothing, but had a "normal" haircut, you likely would have been perceived to be more like the business/non-tech type. The dyed mohawk gave you enough of a counter-culture look that, when paired with the suit, gave you an overall look completely unique from the informally-dressed nerds and the formally-dressed suits, and that's generally viewed positively by the nerd crowd. And it's also about the people around you. You'd presumably already established your personality and technical competence at your company before that, so while the change in look was of course a change, they already had context in which to appreciate the change. In that context, even if you hadn't changed your hairstyle, while you may have gotten some surprised looks and questions when you suddenly show up in a suit, your colleagues would still assume "the best" before believing you'd turned into a "suit" they don't trust anymore.