Who is a Dude?

It is fair to note alternate definitions of the term “Dude” (an effeminate British cowboy of the American Westward Ho years [derogatory] or “an elephant’s butt hair”, as I was told in the fourth grade [origin unknown]), but herein “Dude” is used as a term codified by its common usage: a familiar or known person.

Furthermore, please note that we use the word “Dude” as a gender-free identifier. This is a specific and natural effort to disabuse terminology of outdated segregations, and to acknowledge an essential nature of the Dude as a person compelled by Individuality. Though the physical shape of natural-born genitalia was assumed to suggest a template for personal nature, we are now in an era of cultural override, which celebrates the capacity for infinite variation.

Our times are casual and urban living promotes general crowds and united groups. In his tract The Psychic Soviet, Ian Svenonius remarks on the “Seinfeld Effect”, a mass response to the popular sitcom resulting in the trendy re-population of city centers. In an urban environment, one gains familiar awareness of individuals who live in proximity and tap the same resources. Like our blood relatives, we do not choose these people, but we are bound together by common space and/or time.

Though there have always been Dudes, there is currently a glut of them. A majority of college students will dabble in some form of dude lifestyle (some colleges seem to promote only this; see Dude Training), and widespread internet use among children provides the fertile ground from whence dudes spring. These examples align Dudes with youth and verily, a dude of any age is likely to have some youthful aspect. But lifetime Dudes exist, and with greater cultural prominence than ever before.