I grew up in a small town of about 6500 people, WASP central, you could call it. It was the late eighties when I was in high school. Designer polo tops, penny loafers and button downs, obsessed everyone. As long as you were wearing at least one, horse or crest emblazoned item, you fit in.

It was a society of snobs but as long as one could muster the $80 to buy an overpriced piece of Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren clothing, you fit in. Living in a small town bubble, the difference between the rich and the poor in most cases wasn’t so much the money you had but how you spent it. Sporting a mullet while wearing a black heavy metal T-shirt and acid washed jeans was completely acceptable as long as you wore the mandatory pinstriped oxford-cloth polo pony shirt overtop of it all.

I remember the people who refused to conform, the few Goths and nouveau-hippie bohemians in my class. At the time, I always reassured myself that they were conforming to non-conformity. Although, I tried to believe they were poseurs, I always secretly admired them too.

As an adult, you see how some individuals still standout from the crowd. Fashions change but the ideas of cliques and social hierarchy remain. Nevertheless, you don’t expect adults to react like caddy teens. Then you read a story as I did by Joe Hildebrand in the Daily Telegraph (Australia, 04/07/06), explaining how an airline employee was fired by her female supervisor from working the baggage check because she looked too Goth.

Follow the link to see for yourself what “too Goth” means in this case. Other than black hair, dark nails and little bit of extra eyeliner, she looks rather mainstream, almost mundane. The woman, Brooke Ogden even did a KFC commercial that aired successfully on TV (hardly a company affiliated with either vampires or Satan, just artery-clogging heart disease, I say facetiously).

I wonder if her boss, went to my high school… or was she just never considered enough to be on TV?