identity and self expression

“The Wolf of Wall Street” is a 2014 movie based on the 2007 memoir written by Jordan Belfort, former stockbroker and financial criminal. The movie stars Leonardo DeCaprio as Belfort’s character, following his journey from being a regular old stockbroker on the trading floor, to running boiler-room-style scams on penny stocks, to performing elaborate pump-and-dump schemes from his own brokerage house, Stratton Oakmont.

Aside from telling the story of Belfort’s financial crimes, the movie also displays the other, much more “entertaining” aspects of his life: hookers, drugs, and cars and boats.

Obviously, this has nothing to do with “Wall Street” and more to do with “The Wolf”. However, the aesthetics of this movie, as well as the personality and mannerisms of Leonardo DeCaprio’s character have massive influences on the public image and perception of Wall Street as well as the world of finance as a whole.

Stereotyping is and has been a natural social phenomenon ever since we became homo sapiens. Reducing people from creatures of immense depth and complexity to simple patterns of behavior and tendencies allows our small monkey brains to grasp the concept of a “person” much more easily and efficiently. Being able to predict and model the behavior of other people is incredibly valuable — it allows one to develop trust to other people, as well as perform in a social environment.

As we spend more and more time with a person, we do away with remembering them as a collection of different stereotypes and our mental model of them becomes much more natural and human. That is why we treat people we’ve known our entire lives differently — aside from the emotional connection, they are simply more “human” in our heads. Any stranger may as well be a video game NPC.

Stereotypes are informed and derived from the copying and mimicing of small micro-behaviors, characteristics, tendencies, and values across a group of people. Accents are an example of a characteristic that may form part of a larger stereotype. Combine an Indian accent and an Internet/over-the-phone scam, and you arrive at the infamous “Indian scammer” stereotype. When you think of a “hippie” (or at least, when an American thinks of a hippie), you typically picture a person with long hair, wearing brightly colored rainbow clothing, plays the guitar, maybe owns a van, is anti-war, and smokes marijuana.

This begs the question: Why do stereotypes fit so well? Humans are, after all, complex beings. We all have our own interests, needs, desires, and dreams. We were all raised differently and we have all had different experiences.

One possible explanation for why this happens has to do with “being predictable”. Compressing people to mere concepts and patterns doesn’t necessarily just go one way. People themselves can start to compress their own personalities, in order to fit into an existing societal mold that they choose for themselves.

Since stereotypes are a tool for us to possibly infer or predict characteristics of a person from their other tendencies, if a person desires to be seen or to be interpreted as possibly having certain characteristics desirable to themselves, then they will adjust themselves to conform to “stereotypes”, ideas, and molds that fit those characteristics. For example, someone that values modesty, minimalism, and humility may express those values in the way they dress. This is the simplest form of self-expression — directly connecting ones actions to the values one holds.

Now, complexity and confusion arises when self-expression is derived not from the values, but from other expressions of those values themselves. For example, take Andrew Tate, an internet personality most known for his patriarchal values. Someone that agrees and takes inspiration from Tates’ views on mens’ role in society, womens’ value, and discipline, may, in a subconscious attempt to express their ideology, adopt other traits of Tate that aren’t necessarily connected to Tates’ original ideas; namely, his mannerisms, the way he dresses, his obsession with Bugattis, etc.

There may be weak connections between those traits and the original ideas Tate expresses — speaking in a bold, arrogant manner may represent the idea of male strength that Tate values.

However, it is here where stereotypes and the value of inferring a person’s personality and values from their outward self-expression start to prove less useful. It is here where stereotypes do the most damage.

When expressions of values start to detach from the values themselves, unnecessary false equivalence and self-limitation occurs.

For example, tattoos in Western society are discriminated against, specifically because tattoos are typically associated with people from a lower socio-economic bracket. As such, because of the stigma surrounding them, tattoos also developed to be associated with rebellion. On the other hand, the art of “Henna” — the practice of staining the skin with a plant-based paste — has been practiced in Pakistan, India, Africa, and the Middle East for over 5000 years. Fundamentally speaking, they are no different — they are both done for the purposes of decorating the skin with figures. However, Henna is regarded with much more elegance and respect. It is only in Western society that a false equivalence was created — that tattoos, by virtue of their popularity among the lower class, are inherently “dirty”.

With the internet and the increasingly globalized nature of the world, the rate at which any one person (or at least, a person fortunate enough to have internet access or any form of electronic communication) discovers and experiences new things rival that of monarchs from the past world. As such, each of us have an incredible opportunity to become human beings with extreme depth and substance. It will be a waste to worry so much about fitting into an arbitrary social box.