Uniforms and Uniformity

“From school uniforms to team learning to community service, Millennials are gravitating towards group activity.”

– Howe and Strauss, Millennial Rising “The Next Generation”

I have a lot of issues I could take up with Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe about the intro chapter we read from Millennial Rising. (Al Gore liked this?) They left the pool of survey participants noticeably ambiguous, they distorted stats to prove their assertions, and they oversimplified themes and trivialized heavy issues… But I’m going to focus and one aspect I found the most bizarre: Uniforms.

The main idea behind millennials is the emergence of “unique” youngsters each believing they’re special, important, and different to an extent bordering on narcissism. But H&S mention uniforms at least 5 times, as if faculty-imposed clothing regulation means we’ve suddenly become more modest, cooperative, and less sexually active.

My favorite quote is during they’re negative/positive comparisons: “In school, they’re kids who… are drugged to make them behave…But they’re also urban kids in bright uniforms.”

Since when did conformity in dress become a sign that we’re going to be better kids?  H&S say we’re not self absorbed, but cooperative team players, because we wear school uniforms. I’m looking at Veronica Mars, Kyle XY, and Degrassi…and nope, I’m not seeing school uniforms. I doubt uniforms have become more common.

In fact, at my high school, a “code of options” was implemented my sophomore year, after a group of senior girls the year before had basically terrorized the campus wearing only thongs, bras, and angel wings to the Halloween school dance. (On normal school days, the sluttiest girl would wear skirts that I’m pretty sure were actually just belts with a ruffle on the bottom). But the point is, my school was aware that they were taking away a big part of our freedom of expression, and tried to placate us with a mix of varying school shirts and skirts while still allowing jeans…

We don’t like to look the same! In TV shows now, the kids that dress alike tend to be the brainwashed cheerleader cliques or the threatening gangster groups. In Veronica Mars, the clothing of the 09ers shows off status and conformity in taste, while the PCHers all wear black biker gear. But the clothing is more hodgepodge and subtle now – it doesn’t say exactly who the character is and where they belong right away, compared to Freaks and Geeks.

Congrats, H&S, in proving correctly that the parents of the millennials don’t understand their kids’ potential, by completely missing the mark uniformity. I’m not super patriotic when it comes to my generation, but I felt underwhelmed and insulted reading about how gung-ho identical we are as a group. I disagree with this. I think we, if millennials really are a thing, enjoy expressing ours individuality.