Everyone wants to be special. From the hipsters to the hippies to the cat people, teens love to revel in their uniqueness and nonconformity. This stems from the fact that in recent years conformism has gained quite a negative reputation, becoming synonymous with “boring” and “uninteresting.” Unfortunately, fewer people than ever are giving conformity a legitimate shot before hopping on the bandwagon of the newest underground fad. Nowadays, conformity is extremely underrated.

A lot of the quest for nonconformity is based on the teenage mentality of rebelling against the system and proving you’re never going to grow up to be one of those boring adults, working 9-5 jobs at the office. At its heart, the entire movement is a constant struggle to show that one is different or unique from everyone else, basing one’s entire identity off of these differences. The nonconformist mindest necessitates that you view your culture and way of life as superior to those around you, purely on the basis that it is less popular.

Conformity is what holds society together. When people share the same style of clothing, listen to the same genres of music, and have similar ideologies, a strong, close-knit community is formed. People form connections by finding common ground and building relationships from there. If an entire society were to be composed of “special snowflakes”, who constantly put down others’ tastes and behaviors for being too similar to the norm, a sense of community would never be formed. Because of this, nonconformists can easily find themselves in self-imposed isolation due to their rejection of everything society has come to love.

Being a conformist doesn’t mean you have decided to sacrifice your identity to become another meaningless drone in society. In fact, conformity allows the freedom to find self-validation in what you are, instead of what you are not. You’re not desperately trying to assert your individuality by rebelling against the norm or showing your uniqueness in some way; you’re just content to be yourself, even if – gasp – you’re not that different from everyone else.