The pop culture topic I chose for this week is ear stretching, or as a lot of people call it, gauging. This has become a popular trend now a day, especially in the younger audience. Theories that apply to this pop culture topic are rituals and stereotypes.
Some Indian tribes stretch their ears as a rite of passage. They start when they are young adults and continue to stretch their ears throughout their life. This goes into the category of rituals. These tribes do this to their men tribe members and teach each generation to do it. Indian tribes believe stretching their ears gives them special abilities or keeps their tribe safe.
In the modern community a lot of people, mostly young adults or pre-teens have been gauging their ears. This is a very popular trend now and isn’t categorized as a ritual, but these gauges do cause a lot of stereotypes. Some jobs find these ear rings nonprofessional and make employees take them out. A lot of people look at kids with gauges and categorized them as punks, or unprofessional. This is unacceptable, it is just a trend that has caught on and in most kids eyes it is just a form of fashion.
When I started thinking about this topic and put it in perspective it really made me think. People judge to quickly and put people in a certain stereotype. I personally have gauges in my ears and have been judged to be a punk. But in reality I am a full time student, a loving mom, and serve the country in the Army. So people should think before placing people in certain categories.
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