DUDES AND NORMALS

The foil against which Dude Types are developed is normative society. In the not-too-distant past, Normalcy was the aspiration – if you didn’t have it, you pretended to. The long-standing normative traditions of ethnic and national cultures were dispersed in America, where Templates for Normalcy were invented and broadcast over television airwaves. But the multifarious influences and voices of our contemporary culture (and the consumer’s backfiring “Power of Choice”) has exploded our options beyond any reference point of normalcy. Our televised heritage was a strong influence that continues to permeate, but we no longer need to speak of it as the desired option. Normalcy is merely the default setting.


Indeed, the term “normals” is used among some dudes as a blanket to denote a mass of people who either do not seek to distinguish themselves, or use well-worn templates to do so. The term may be used by a dude about another type of dude, betraying a kind of hierarchy within the Dude Kingdom (see “Awesomeness” and “Holier Than Thou”, below).

Another, more subtle term in use is “everyone”, as in the case “Everyone likes to go to the mall on Saturday”, in which the explicit implication is that the dude speaking does not like to go to the mall on Saturday, thereby distinguishing herself from “the” mass. “Everyone” does not include her. (An interesting corollary to this habit happens among Hipsters, see below.)

Dudes are not necessarily arrogant in their differentiation as individuals, but they are most certainly conscious of it.