The Festival

I was going to have a whole bunch of photos to show you all: Rachel losing her karaoke virginity, some very clever toilet door poetry, pics from the street party… the bad news is, only two hours before coming home my bag was stolen – with the camera in it.

Rather than vent about how evil and selfish such an act is (my swear vocabulary has already quadrupled over the past three days from all my ranting thus far) I want to raise a discussion on stereotypes and first impressions. How is this topic related to my incident?

People are often judged by how they look, what they do, and how they dress. People can be mistrusted because they have a bunch of facial piercings or tattoos or generally look a little rough. Yet these are usually a form of expression, and not a reflection of the person. Some of the roughest-looking people I know are also the kindest and most honest. So after an extended weekend spent with creatively-dressed creative people, I forgot that not all people are kind, considerate, and not out to rip someone off to fund their drug habit or impress their mates. Sometimes the ones you gotta watch are the well-off, designer-label-wearing little fucktards who are just out for kicks. Sorry, I’m ranting already.

I actually didn’t see the person who took my bag. What I did see though was a “trendy” teenage boy, hauled off to the station for shoplifting half a dozen bottles of designer label aftershave, acting all smug and self-righteous like he had every right in the world to do it, and it was an outrage that he got busted.

All I can say is, it’s sad you can’t trust anyone anymore. But there are good people out there too. You just never know until you can get past any first impressions that stereotypes, not an individual’s actions or personality, can ingrain on you.