Our Personal Ethos

A few classes ago, we talked about how we build our own ethos or character to show a certain side of ourselves to the world. A lot of the things we wear and do in public are mostly because we want others to see a certain type of person. Look at anyone’s Facebook profile picture. There is a reason that person chose that picture to be the picture that people look at first when they click on your name. If the picture is a photo of the person with other people or at a party, the person might be trying to say, “I’m social, I like to have fun, and I have friends!” Or if a guy’s picture is him in a suit with a water gun and making a funny face, he may be saying, “I’m classy but I’m also funny.” However, wardrobe also is a way to build your character. A person wearing a soccer jersey may be telling people how athletic he is, or a person with a Penn State hat may be trying to emphasize his identity as a Penn State student. I will explain how my clothing choice was my attempt to build my own ethos.

This is kind of weird for me to do, because I never really thought about this until that class a while ago. When I was young, my clothes were nothing special. I just wore jeans, plain t-shirts, and the occasional hat. But something happened in my life that made me feel like I needed to look differently: I took up the drums and played in rock bands. As I became more involved in rock music, my appearance changed. My hair grew out and the clothes I wore weren’t the same as from my younger years. I was trying to fit the stereotype of a rock drummer, which is weird to think about, because I didn’t even notice it. As time went on, my hair got even longer, my clothes became darker, and my jeans became thinner (although they never shrunk to the “skinny” size, thank God), especially since I started playing hardcore and punk music. Subconsciously, I wanted people to know that I was a musician in a certain genre of music by wearing this clothing.

Even in college, I still sometimes wear these clothes. I’m not really sure why, but I think it’s because I still want to tell people that I play music, or maybe it’s because I’m used to wearing them. They’re actually really comfortable, now that I think about it.