Question

For this assignment each of you will deviate from at least one widely accepted norm, more specifically a Folkway. You might wear non-normative clothes to class or dinner. You might eat your meal in front of people while standing or while singing. You might greet people or return others' greetings in a very unusual way; saying goodbye as you approach someone. You might walk into a store or mall with your underwear on the outside of your clothes; or on your head. You might pogo stick both inside and outside a store. You might do stretching or exercises inside a store. You might wear a gorilla suit as you run errands; or wear a super hero outfit. You might drive backward through a drive-thru. You might set-up a whoopee cushion to sit on in a public place.

Answer 1

The first thing that I tried out is to wear non normative clothes to the class. According to the norms, the students are supposed to wear formal and semi formals to the work. Deviating from that, I chose to wear a party wear dress to the class for one day. People around me were startled to see me like that and they were more than just startled to see that sight of me. Before doing this, I found it really funny to wear a party wear dress to the class and didn’t think that it would have much impact on my day. I thought that people would think that I am just experimenting with clothes. But what actually happened was really significant. In order to avoid the embarrassment for wearing party wear to class, I reached my class early and saved myself a seat. Students entering the class were actually startled to see me like that and the difficulty I faced in handling a party wear dress in a class, where we had lot of activities involved, was really difficult. People started asking me whether there is any function going on that they forgot to attend. Initially it was so much of fun, as time passed people started to giving looks as if I was from another plant as I was dress different from the whole class.

Next thing which I tried out was to greet random people on the road and also react to their greetings in an unusual way of saying good bye. Strangers were really happy when I greeted them in a friendly manner. It was least expected from most of the strangers that if they walk past another person in this busy world, they wouldn’t even look at the other person’s face. So the way I wished these random strangers made them really happy and startled. When people whom I know came towards me and greeted me, I waved them goodbye and walked past them. Some of them stood there expressionless at the same time, I came to know that some of these friends of mine are really annoyed with that behavior. There were talks that there is something terribly wrong with them as one day I wore a part wear to the class and now I am waving goodbye to people who actually came forward to talk to me. After this experiment, I found that people were really happy when someone wishes them in the most unexpected situations, but the other people weren’t happy to get avoided when they wanted to start a conversation. The need for inclusion is what people lack when they are avoided from a conversation that they want to get involved.

The last thing that I experimented was to drive backward through a drive-thru. This was the most risky task which I felt and this even could have earned me a penalty. I was really tensed before doing this. I tried this out when there was less traffic so that I wouldn’t meet with an accident. This experiment was a partial failure since, as soon as I drove backwards in the drive thru, the security official of that lot came and asked me to stop and directed me that this is a drive thru that permits only one way entry, not a reverse exit. And I also had the embarrassment of getting warned for doing this.