Recently a poll was carried out on the internet, boldly entitled ‘What Stereotype do you belong to?’ Well what are stereotypes? They are a generalised impression of a certain group of people, but whether they are quite fair or not is a difficult and controversial topic. Some people enjoy having the simplicity and easiness of being defined by a stereotype, but others think that stereotypes shouldn’t exist, that people should define themselves and just be who they want to be without any labels.

Many people like to judge everyone they meet, even people they don’t meet. Maybe this is a good idea, summing up everyone from their appearance, but maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

For instance, how would you feel if you came across a person covered in facial piercings?

Some people might feel a bit intimidated by him because he has a lot of facial piercings, and some people could judge him to be the kind of guy who likes scaring people, which might not be the case.

Here I conducted a short interview with a girl who’s concerned about stereotypical judging going too far- Me: “Do you think you can label people into groups?”

Emily:”I think that people can be categorised based on their interests but I think it is wrong if you then presume things about people because of that.”

But in the end, why should you let anyone tell you who you are? Perhaps you should take stereotypes with a pinch of salt.

Daniel Shao, Year 9, Glenthorne High School