bloggedy blog

:: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 ::

The Gamma sorority. The latest Newsweek has a fascinating package of stories about today's American teenage girls: the alphas (the popular ones), betas (wannabes) and gamma girls. According to this article, gamma girls are confident, poised, athletic, and cool in their own way -- without having to be one of the popular cheerleader types. "Blessed with confidence and self-knowledge, gammas are equipped to shrug off the social pressure to experiment. Drug use is more of a joke than a temptation."


The package of articles is a fascinating sociological study of one particular southern California high school. But too often the categorizations fall into caricatures. The popular girl is an updated version of the Valley Girl, complete with sentences that always end with a question mark. For example, there's Wendi, the archetype alpha girl for this story. "As part of a crowd proud of being 'cute and bratty,' she boasts of their image. Which is? 'Most of us are, like, blonde. When we walk into a room we let people know that we're there. We always have to look so cute. We match. We wear cool stuff? Like skirts and capris? We all have cute cars?'"


I suppose we have the Midwest's version of alphas, betas and gammas among the youth in our group. But fortunately, very few fit the alpha or beta modes as portrayed in this article. I think it might be more a California thing than anything else. Newsweek might want to consider a story about high school life here in the hinterlands.

:: Andrew 18:44 + ::
...

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